[NonValueAdded]

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding ... there are 4 survivors who will attend this year. Is this their annual “final toast” ceremony and there will be another one held next year? Or is this the last ever (final) ceremony as the survivors are in failing health and unable to attend [as happened with our local Battle of the Bulge ceremony - so very sad].

[Old Sarge]

According to the email I got about it, this will be the last one.

The four men will crack open the bottle of 1896 cognac that has been saved for this occasion.

1896 was the year GEN Doolittle was born.

[Little Ray]

All four of ‘em are in their 90’s if not older. It is almost certainly the LAST toast.
Somebody else at the museum will have turn their cups upside down as they pass...

[PUGACHEV]

I read Jimmy Dolittle's autobiography I Could never Be So Lucky Again, and, IIRC, there is a silver cup or chalice that they toast to at the reunions that will go to the final survivor. That may be why they are going to continue.

[fortheDeclaration]

Yes, I am confused as well, I thought it was to go to the last man.

[HeadOn]

Just got an email, complete with pictures. Like you, I was a bit confused by the “Last” toast. Here’s what my email said:

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“So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.
...
The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date — some time this year — to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is when they will open the bottle of brandy.

The years are flowing by too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only two of them.”

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May God Bless you and your families, Gentlemen, and also the families of all those whose goblets are already upside-down.