The oldest living Marine, Dorothy Schmidt Cole, who joined the Marine Corps after the attack on Pearl Harbor, has died of heart attack at the age of 107, the Associated Press reports.
After being rejected by the Navy because of 4’11” height, Cole joined the Marine Corps when Franklin Roosevelt formed the Women’s Auxiliary for each of the armed services. Cole wanted to be a pilot, and learned how to fly prior to entering the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, but the Marines made her a typist.
Her husband, Wiley, was in the Navy and deployed in the Pacific during the war. When he returned, they moved to San Francisco and worked at the Ames Research Center. They had one child, Beth Kluttz, who was with her mother when she passed. Wiley died in 1955.