Since the Civil War, more than 39 million
men and women have answered the call to serve.
Of those, 3,440 served with such uncommon
valor and extraordinary courage that they
were presented with the Medal of Honor, the
nation's highest military award. In this collection,
more than one hundred of America's living
Medal of Honor recipients are honored. Their
tales of bravery are recounted by best-selling
author Peter Collier, and also feature portraits
by award-winning photographer Nick Del Calzo.
Richard M. McCool, Jr.
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
USS Landing Craft Support (L) (3) 122 n
By Peter Collier
Richard McCool was fifteen years old when he finished high school
and nineteen when he graduated from the University of Oklahoma. He
received an appointment to the Naval Academy as a member of the class
of 1945, but because of the war the course was compressed into three
years, and the class of 1945 graduated early.
Shortly before graduation, McCool attended a presentation given by
a captain recruiting officers for amphibious craft. This kind of duty
didn't have the tradition or romance of the deep-water navy, but the
midshipmen were offered the possibility of commanding their own ship
instead of being junior officers on a large vessel. Midshipman McCool
signed up. After graduation, he picked up his ship in Boston. It was
an LCS, similar in looks to the landing craft that brought soldiers
ashore in invasions, but instead of a blunt bow with troop ramps,
it had a sharp bow and was heavily armed with 40 mm and 20 mm guns,
.50-caliber machine guns, and 120 preloaded 4.5-inch rockets. It carried
a crew of seventy, including six officers.
McCool sailed for San Diego through the Panama Canal in December 1944.
By June 1945, his ship was in Okinawa, part of a unit made up of four
LCS ships and three destroyers patrolling for Japanese kamikazes.
Behind the LCS picket line, the destroyers picked up enemy aircraft
on their radar and radioed the information to McCool and the other
LCS commanders, who attempted to shoot down the planes as they passed
overhead.
On June 10, one of the Japanese planes got through and hit one of
the destroyers. McCool's ship was the closest and rushed to help the
sinking ship. Along with another LCS, McCool picked up its surviving
crew members and transferred them to another American ship.
There were many radar sightings the next day.
Then suddenly kamikazes dived down through the overcast sky. Instead
of heading for the destroyers, the first pilot pointed his plane at
McCool's LCS. McCool's
gunners opened fire and knocked the plane down, but another kamikaze
was right behind it. Their guns hit the second plane as well, but
it crashed into the ship's conning tower. McCool, suffering chest
wounds and burns, was knocked unconscious. When he came to, the conning
tower was on fire. He managed to get down to the main deck, and acting
instinctively -- he would remember almost nothing of the ensuing events
-- he rallied his crew to fight the fire that threatened to engulf
the ship. When he heard that several men were trapped in the burning
deckhouse, he went in to rescue them, carrying one of them to safety
on his back despite his burns. He continued to command his ship until
help was on the way. Then one of his lungs collapsed and he passed
out again.
After two months in a hospital in Guam, where he was one of the first
servicemen to be treated with massive doses of the new drug penicillin,
McCool was transferred to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in California
and then back home to Norman, Oklahoma. He received the Medal of Honor
from President Harry Truman on December 18, 1945.
McCool was well enough to go back on active duty in mid-1946. After
serving in the Korean and Vietnam wars, he retired as a Navy captain
in 1974.
