Air Vice Marshal Adrian Lindley Trevor Cole, CBE, DSO, MC, DFC (19 June 1895 – 14 February 1966) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Joining the army at the outbreak of World War I, he transferred to the Australian Flying Corps in 1916 and flew with No. 1 Squadron in the Middle East and No. 2 Squadron on the Western Front. He became an ace, credited with victories over ten enemy aircraft, and earned the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1921, he was a founding member of the RAAF. "King" Cole rose to the position of Air Member for Supply in 1933 and gained promotion to group captain in 1935. The following year he was appointed the first commanding officer of Headquarters RAAF Station Richmond. During World War II, he led North-Western Area Command in Darwin, Northern Territory, and held a series of overseas posts in North Africa, England, Northern Ireland, and Ceylon. As Forward Air Controller during the Dieppe Raid in 1942, he was wounded in action and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Cole served on corporate boards of directors following his retirement from the RAAF in 1946. He died in 1966 at the age of seventy. Early life and World War I Adrian Cole was born in Glen Iris, a suburb of Melbourne, to barrister and doctor Robert Cole and his wife Helen (née Hake). He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne Grammar School, where he was a member of the cadet corps. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Cole gained a commission in the Australian Military Forces, serving with the 55th (Collingwood) Infantry Regiment. He resigned his commission to join the Australian Imperial Force on 28 January 1916, intending to become a pilot in the Australian Flying Corps. Middle East Posted to No. 1 Squadron (also known until 1918 as No. 67 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps), Cole departed Melbourne aboard HMAT A67 Orsova on 16 March 1916, bound for Egypt. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in June and began his pilot training in August. By the beginning of 1917, he was flying reconnaissance and scouting missions in Sinai and Palestine. He took part in an early example of Allied air-sea cooperation on 25 February, directing French naval fire against the coastal town of Jaffa by radio from his B.E.2 biplane. On 20 April,