Death & Medal of Honor
LTC Cole was recommended for a Medal of Honor for his actions that day, but did not live to receive it.
On September 18, 1944, during Operation Market Garden, Colonel Cole, commanding the 3rd Battalion of the 502d PIR in Best, Netherlands, got on the radio. A pilot asked him to put some orange identification panels in front of his position. Cole decided to do it himself. For a moment, Lt-Col Cole raised his head, shielding his eyes to see the plane. Suddenly a shot was fired by a German sniper in a farmhouse only 300 yards away, killing Cole instantly.
Two weeks later, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bayonet charge near Carentan on June 11. As his widow and two-year-old son looked on, Cole's mother accepted his posthumous award on the parade ground, where Cole had played as a child, at Fort Sam Houston.
LTC Cole is buried at Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, in Margraten, the Netherlands.
Read more about this topic: Robert G. Cole
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