The North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber was used by many Allied air forces in every theater of World War II and by many other air forces after the war ended, seeing service across four decades. It is named after General Billy Mitchell, a pioneer of US military aviation. Although the B-25 was originally designed to bomb from medium altitudes in level flight, it was used frequently in the Southwest Pacific theater on treetop-level strafing and parachute-retarded fragmentation bombs missions against Japanese airfields in New Guinea and the Philippines. These heavily-armed, field-modified aircraft were used on strafing and skip-bombing missions against Japanese shipping trying to resupply their land-based armies as well. Mitchells were also responsible for devastating effects in the Central Pacific, Alaska, Mediterranean, North Africa and China-Burma-India theaters.

On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. Richard (Dick) Cole (then 2nd Lieutenant) flew from the deck of the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Hornet on what would be one of the most daring raids on the empire of Japan during World War II. Cole was the co-pilot of a B-25B Mitchell bomber piloted by Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, the mission leader. His plane was one of sixteen bombers with a mission to bomb Tokyo and other key cities in Japan that day. This attack, America’s first retaliatory strike, would be so decisive that it would ultimately lead to the turning point of the war by provoking the Japanese counter attack and defeat at Midway in June of that same year.

This model is personally signed by Richard Cole.