Craig S

History. Heavy Metal. Running. Insomnia. Books.

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

I actually had tears when I saw these. Just speechless. #violetteszabo #SOE Wanted to see these in so long.

[Hosna ⚖️ בניטה @DOGEQEEN]

She stood naked among hundreds of other women, waiting for death. The heavy iron doors slammed shut. During the freezing winter of 1944, Gena Turgel found herself inside a gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau, waiting for the Zyklon B gas. Minutes passed in complete darkness. Women whispered prayers and quietly cried. But the gas never arrived. When the guards finally opened the doors, they were stunned to find that the women were still alive. Gena walked out on her own feet. Years later she said simply, “God must have protected me.”

She was later transferred to Bergen-Belsen. It was there that she encountered Anne Frank, who was gravely ill with typhus. Despite the danger, Gena brought her water, washed her face, and held her hand. Anne died just weeks before the camp was liberated. Gena later recalled, “Her eyes, they were screaming.”

On April 15, 1945, British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen. Amid the devastation Gena met Norman Turgel, a British intelligence officer. Six months later they were married. Her wedding dress was made entirely from the silk of a British Army parachute. The dress is now preserved at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Gena Turgel lived to the age of ninety-five and became a respected voice in Holocaust education. For decades she visited schools and spoke about what she had endured, without allowing hatred to define her message. She wanted future generations to understand the importance of compassion and respect. Her life had taken her through unimaginable loss, yet she continued to speak about the value of kindness.

[Variety @Variety]

Tom Skerritt, who starred in the TV series “Picket Fences” and appeared in movies ranging from “MASH” to “Alien,” “Top Gun,” “A River Runs Through It” and “Ted,” has died of natural causes at 93.

https://t.co/13H8QfVBlc

[Vanguard WWII @Vanguard_WW2]

🇫🇷 "Of course, I would have liked to live."

He was 17. Hours before his execution, he wrote to his mother, asking her to be brave.

October 22, 1941. Châteaubriant, occupied France. German forces took 27 hostages to a quarry and shot them in retaliation for the killing of a German officer in Nantes.

Among them was Guy Môquet, a teenage communist activist.

Before facing the firing squad, he wrote a final letter to his family: "I am going to die!"

Then came the words that still hurt, 85 years later: "Of course, I would have liked to live."

He asked his little brother to study hard. He asked his mother to find the courage to overcome her grief.

The hostages refused blindfolds. They faced death singing La Marseillaise.

Twenty-seven lives ended that afternoon. One boy’s letter still speaks.

Remember Guy Môquet. Remember all 27.

Follow @Vanguard_WW2 for the human stories behind WWII.

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

@brianlfc1 @Metallica @LondonStadium Mate, it was so amazing!!

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

Brilliant from @Metallica last night at the @LondonStadium #metallica

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

Guess the film? On now.

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

During WW2, SOE agent Nancy Wake cycled nearly 500 kilometres through occupied France, passing countless German checkpoints in 71 gruelling hours, to deliver vital replacement codes after a Gestapo raid.

She later called it her most important contribution to the war.

[BARNABY JAMESON @Silk_Scribbler]

After Étienne Szabo was killed in North Africa in October 1942, Violette joined SOE.

Leo Marks gave her 'The Life That I Have' as her code poem.

He called her “A dark-haired slip of mischief….She had a Cockney accent which added to her impishness.”

[Paroles de Combattants de la Libération @paroles_la]

Mâcon. Une lycéenne. Qui, en 1945, à 18 ans, a déjà, de la vie, connu le pire et le meilleur. La défaite, la Résistance, la fraternité, la trahison, l'emprisonnement, la déportation, la maladie, la victoire. Elle utilisera les 73 années suivantes à l'enseigner. Suzanne Orts.

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

@LydiaJane13 My favourite film. 🎬

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

Nansi Williams - the heroic dinner lady who died saving the lives of schoolchildren during the Aberfan disaster...

On October 21, 1966, a Welsh school dinner lady Nansi Williams threw herself over five children as a wall of coal waste crashed into their school. All five survived. She did not.

That morning, children at Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, Wales, were preparing for their final day before the half-term holiday. Nansi, a local woman who worked in the school dining hall, was collecting dinner money from pupils.

Above the village stood enormous mountains of waste from the nearby coal mine. For years, residents had lived beneath them, despite concerns about their stability.

At approximately 9:15 a.m., one of those mountains collapsed.

Around 150,000 tonnes of coal waste and water surged down the hillside, smashing into houses and engulfing the school.

Inside, Nansi saw the danger approaching.

She ordered five children to get down, then threw herself over them, using her own body as a shield.

The impact killed her.

One of the children, Karen Thomas, later recalled how Nansi had jumped on top of them as glass shattered and the wall collapsed. The children initially did not understand that she was dead. They tried pulling her hair to wake her.

When rescuers recovered Nansi's body, accounts say she was still clutching a pound note collected for school dinners.

The Aberfan disaster killed 144 people, including 116 children.

An official inquiry later placed responsibility squarely on the National Coal Board. The catastrophe had been preventable.

Nansi had no children of her own. In her final moments, she saved five who belonged to other families.

For decades, her extraordinary sacrifice received little recognition beyond the community that remembered her.

Now, approaching the disaster's 60th anniversary in October 2026, a campaign to honor her has succeeded. A commemorative Purple Plaque is scheduled to be unveiled in Aberfan on October 30.

Five children went home because Nansi Williams never did.

#archaeohistories

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

I would love to sit down with a pint and watch Where Eagles Dare while chatting to @almurray a voice for audio books and podcasts.

[PurelyFootball ℗ @PurelyFootball]

Every match at Lincoln, the names Bill Stacey and Jim West are there for all to see.

The Stacey West Stand honours the two Imps supporters who were among the 56 people killed in the Valley Parade fire.

Forever remembered. ❤️

[Protecting the Blue @protectingblue]

RIP. On his final shift before retirement, K9 Kylo was murdered while protecting the community he had served for six years.

K9 Kylo was murdered when he was shot and killed while attempting to apprehend a homicide suspect in the area of Southeast 97th Avenue and Southeast Oak Street in Portland.

Around 1:45 p.m., the U.S. Marshals Service Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, working with the Portland Police Bureau and Gresham Police Department, attempted to arrest a man wanted for murder. While trying to apprehend the man, gunfire was exchanged, and K9 Kylo was struck.

K9 Kylo was transported to an emergency veterinary facility, where he succumbed to his wound.

The violent offender was pronounced dead at the scene.

Portland Police described Kylo as “happy, quirky, goofy.” He was known for howling along with the sirens on calls, and off duty he loved exploring the forest and playing with his little brother Apollo, a miniature dachshund.

🖤🙏💙🙏🖤

[Vanguard WWII @Vanguard_WW2]

She wrote children’s stories and believed in nonviolence. Then Britain sent her into Nazi-occupied France with a radio hidden inside a suitcase.

When London offered to bring her home, she refused.

Follow us to keep stories like hers alive.

On the night of June 16, 1943, a Lysander landed secretly near Angers. Aboard was the first female SOE wireless operator sent from Britain into occupied France.

Her codename was "Madeleine".

Days after she reached Paris, the "Prosper" resistance network began collapsing. Agents were arrested one after another. Soon, she was the only SOE wireless operator still transmitting from the city.

She could have left. She stayed, moving between safe houses while German radio-detection teams hunted her.

Betrayed and arrested in October 1943, she attempted to escape twice from Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch. After the second attempt, her captors demanded that she promise never to try again.

She refused!

Classified as "highly dangerous", she was sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany, where she spent nearly ten months in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained.

She gave away no names.

According to fellow prisoners, she scratched two things into the bottom of a metal bowl: "Nora Baker."

And her mother’s address in London.

If she disappeared, someone would know who she was.

On September 13, 1944, she and three other SOE women were taken to Dachau and shot in the back of the head. Their bodies were burned.

Paris had been liberated just 19 days earlier.

She was 30 years old.

Her real name was Noor Inayat Khan. She left no grave. Only a name scratched into metal, and a story the world must never forget.

[Special Ops Magazine @specialopsmag]

Combat medic Chantelle Taylor, one of the most remarkable voices to come out of the British Army’s long war in Afghanistan.

During a 2008 patrol toward Marjah, she made history when her convoy turned into a “Taliban shooting gallery.” Attacked from the left and rear, her Land Rover was raked with AK-47 fire. About 50 feet away, an insurgent was shooting at her vehicle. Overwhelmed by the feeling she was about to be shot in the face, she put her SA80 on him and fired seven rounds until he dropped, becoming the first female British soldier to kill an enemy at close range.

Later in the same tour she fought in a seven-week running battle from a patrol base while supporting operations around Kajaki. A force of about 100 British troops plus a small Afghan contingent took 66 casualties. Taylor treated the wounded under fire, managed dangerous helicopter evacuations in the “golden hour,” and when numbers got low she even stepped in as number two on a 51mm mortar.

After promotion to staff sergeant and a recommendation for an officer’s commission, Taylor chose a different path. She left the Army, and returned to Afghanistan with the US Department of State to help build trauma-care training. She later worked in diplomatic protection, and published her raw memoir, Battleworn (first released as Bad Company).

Today she continues using that experience beyond the battlefield, serving as an ambassador and speaking about the hidden costs of conflict, especially for women.

[SOE History @SOEhistory]

🅾🅽 🆃🅷🅸🆂 🅽🅸🅶🅷🆃
SEP 24/25, 1942: Andrée Borrel and Lise de Baissac leave England in a RAF Whitley and become the first female SOE agents to parachute into occupied France. They drew straws and luck gave Borrel the first jump.
#AndréeBorrel #LiseDeBaissac #SOE #WW2 🇬🇧

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

Apparently this is Adrian Swift from @IronMaiden @amazonmusic 😂😂😂🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

[🇺🇸JB MAGA 🇺🇸 @JBMAGA03]

Victoria Soto. Remember her name.

27-year-old first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook.

She hid her kids. Looked the killer in the eye. Lied and said they were in the gym. Then put her own body between him and those children with nothing in her hands but courage.

Some of those kids lived because she bought them seconds.

Most people forgot her.

Don’t. 🇺🇸

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

Thanks @Roger_Moorhouse Wolfpack arrived today. Looks great.

[Craig S @CraigRunner]

@YeomansonCarol @Boobaloosh I’m so sorry for your loss.