Richard Miles McCool
United States Navy officer, recipient of the Medal of Honor (1922-2008)
Richard Miles McCool Jr. (January 4, 1922 – March 5, 2008) was a United States Navy officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions during the Battle of Okinawa in World War II.
Biography
Richard M. McCool Jr. was born on January 4, 1922, in Oklahoma. McCool graduated from high school at the age of 15. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in political science.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he was accepted into a new collegiate Naval ROTC program, and later was appointed to the United States Naval Academy. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1944 as an ensign (his class of 1945 graduated a year early) and was assigned to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida. In December 1944, following training at the Amphibious Training Station Solomons, Maryland, he assumed command of USS LCS(L)(3)-122, a Landing Craft Support ship and was promoted to lieutenant in January 1945. On June 10, 1945, off the coast of Okinawa Island, McCool helped rescue the survivors of sinking destroyer USS William D. Porter. The next day, his own ship was hit by a Japanese kamikaze.
The public source identifies “Richard Miles McCool” as united States Navy officer, recipient of the Medal of Honor (1922-2008). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Miles and McCool.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7327812. VIAF identifies the subject as 305857072. The Library of Congress control number is no2013126205. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2008, 1941 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Miles McCool” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.