GIST TALK

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Richard Miles McCool, Jr. of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary actions on June 10-11, 1945, off the coast of Okinawa. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, McCool was accepted into a new Navy ROTC program and later appointed to the Naval Academy.  He graduated in 1944 (his class of 1945 graduated a year early) and by June 1945 was serving as a lieutenant on the USS LCS(L)(3)-122 and Landing Craft Support ship.  On June 10, 1945, off the coast of Okinawa Island, McCool helped rescue the survivors of the sinking destroyer USS William D. Porter.  The next day, his ship was hit by a Japanese kamikaze. Although he suffered severe burns and shrapnel wounds in the explosion, he continued to lead his crew in the firefighting and rescue efforts until relief arrived. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on June 10-11, 1945. McCool also served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He retired at the rank of Captain in

Young lovers who didn't want to be apart from each other, and whose parents didn't approve their marriage, ki*lled themselves by h*nging from a rope. The pair discovered hanging from a suicide rope Residents of Bangladesh discovered a young couple hanging from a tree following an astonishing act of suicide. Several sources on the internet state that their parents did not encourage their marriage, which led the two young lovers to take their own lives since they did not want to be apart. Patricia, the person who posted the startling images, wrote this: "There will always be wonders!" "Suicide for love" The only reason this occurred was that their parents wanted to keep the "TWO LOVER'S BIRDS" apart from one other, but they decided to break things off this way. What is wrong with today's youth? Are they not squandered DESTINIES? Is it OK to commit suicide out of love? They committed themselves while their family were attempting to separate th

Curtis and Catherine were two American siblings who were s£xu*ally abused by a family member before planning a way to escape through murder. They were 12 and 13 respectively. The duo lived with their father and his girlfriend in their Florida home. Another male relative who was a convicted sex offender also lived with them; he even shared a bed with Curtis. Catherine and his brother complained several times to their father about the abuse they were suffering at the hands of his male relative, but he and his girlfriend thought they were making things up. They decided to kill everyone in the family out of anger. On that fateful day in 1999, they shot their father's girlfriend, killing her with four bullets. They were arrested and charged as adults. They remain the youngest people in America to be charged as adults for first degree murder. They were cajoled into taking a plea deal for 18 years in prison. They accepted the deal and pled guilty to second-degree murder. The case was clos

  Blindfolded Russian POWs (possibly deserters) with their Austro-Hungarian captors in a trench on the Eastern Front, 1916. . Today 108 years ago, on July 3, 1916, the Russian Army launched the Baranovichi Offensive on the Eastern Front. . To support their Allies at Verdun and on the Somme, in April 1916, the Russians began planning for a major offensive in Galicia against the Austro-Hungarians - the Brusilov Offensive. . To support this operation and prevent Austro-Hungarian and German troops from being transferred to Galicia, the Russians planned another offensive further north in the Baranovichi area of modern-day Belarus. . This supportive operation were to be carried out by the Russian 4th Army under General Ragoza, who was under the general command of General Evert. However, from the beginning General Evert was against this operation, favoring a defensive approach. . On June 4, 1916, General Brusilov launched his offensive in Galicia and broke through the Austrian lines, capturin

 James Berry of Heckmondwike Yorkshire (1852-1913). Period on Home Office List - 1884-1891. James Berry was born on the 8th of February 1852.  He carried out a total of 130 hangings, including those of five women and that of John Lee (see below).  He was the first British executioner to write his memoirs, "My Experiences as an Executioner" which is still available in libraries and also on line. He was, like Marwood, proud of his calling and both had their own waxworks in Madame Tussauds.  Berry had previously been a policeman in Bradford and had met Marwood and became acquainted with his methods.  He worked in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but strangely not in his native Yorkshire, where James Billington always got the job.   His seven years in office were not without event. His first commission was the double hanging of William Innes and Robert Vickers at Edinburgh’s Calton prison on the 31st of March 1884. Innes and Vickers were two poachers who had shot and killed

Hannah Senesh – an SOE war hero. 23 year old Hannah Szenes (Angicised spelling Senesh) was born in Budapest, Hungary on the 17th of July 1921, into a middle-class and well-educated Jewish family. She was a good student and wanted to become a poet and writer. In 1938, the Nazi persecution of Jews was underway and Hungary sided with Germany.  Rumours were rife that Germany would invade Palestine.  Hannah volunteered to serve in the Jewish underground army and wanted to help Jews escape from Europe.  She became a Zionist and moved to British Mandate Palestine in 1939.  Here she joined a Jewish commando group that was set up to assist British operations in Europe.  In March 1944, Hannah was parachuted by the British Special Operation Executive into Yugoslavia near the Hungarian border with 36 other resistance fighters. Their mission was to save Jews and Allied airmen but before she had a chance to achieve anything, she was captured at the border by Hungarian police in possession of a Briti