Courtesy of Beth Kluttz via AP
- The oldest US Marine, Dorothy Schmidt Cole, died of a heart attack at the age of 107, her daughter has confirmed.
- Cole, whose maiden name was Dorothy Schmidt, was born on September 19, 1913 in the town of Warren in New York state.
- She became a sergeant in the Navy and was discharged in December 1945 after World War Two ended.
- Beth Kluttz confirmed yesterday that her mother had died at Kluttz’s home in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on January 7, 2020.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The oldest US Marine, Dorothy Schmidt Cole, died of a heart attack at the age of 107 earlier this month, her daughter has confirmed.
Cole – whose maiden name was Dorothy Schmidt – was born on September 19, 1913, in the town of Warren in New York state and worked as a secretary for the Young Women’s Christian Association (YCWA) prior to enlisting, according to The Charlotte Observer.
She had traveled to Pittsburgh where she had hoped to volunteer for the Navy but at 4 foot 11 inches tall and with the nickname ‘half-pint,’ she did not meet the Navy requirements, AP reported.
Unfazed by this, she decided that she would learn how to fly a plane anyway and come back and persuade the Marine Corps to allow her to become a pilot after doing so, The Charlotte Observer added.
In July 1942, the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve was created to fill the gaps left by men heading into combat as the conflict intensified internationally, AP noted.
However, the Charlotte Observer added that the branch wasn't formed until February 1943 and Cole enlisted just five months later at the age of 29 and became one of the earliest female Marine reservists after the Pearl Harbor bombing in December 1941.
Read More: A simple philosophy championed by the Navy SEALs that can help anyone build resilience right now
Yet despite 200 hours of flight training and six weeks of boot camp with the Women's Reserve's First Battalion at Camp Lejeune, she ended up "behind a typewriter instead of an airplane," according to AP.
She met her husband, Wiley Cole, during the war. He was in the Navy and served on the USS Hornet aircraft until it was torpedoed by the Japanese and sunk in the Pacific in October 1942, The Charlotte Observer reported.
Cole eventually became a sergeant and was discharged from the Marines in December 1945 after the war ended. She then moved to San Francisco to be with her husband. The couple found employment at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, AP noted.
They worked as an aerial photographer and secretary and had their only child, Beth, in 1953. Wiley Cole died of a heart attack two years later and his wife never remarried, The Charlotte Observer added.
Their daughter, Beth, moved to North Carolina in 1976 and Cole joined her in the area around 1979, according to AP.
Beth Kluttz confirmed yesterday that her mother had died at Kluttz's home in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on January 7, 2020.