Michael J. Daly

Without courage there is no protection for our other values. Every man loses his courage at times. All of us should pray every morning that God will give us the courage to do what is right. And remember when you pray that if you rise at all a better man- your prayer has been answered.

Michael Joseph Daly (September 15, 1924 – July 25, 2008) was an Irish-American United States Army infantry officer who received the United States military's highest decoration for valor—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II. He received the medal for single-handedly eliminating 15 German soldiers including a German patrol, and destroying three machine-gun nests.

Daly resigned from the United States Military Academy after one year to fight in World War II and was sent to Europe, participating in the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach with the 1st Infantry Division. After the D-Day invasion, he was later reassigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and fought on to Germany where he was wounded again. He received a battlefield commission to second lieutenant, returned to combat, and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Quotes

Never underestimate the good that one man can do.

Every man deserves a cause greater than himself.

Anyone would have done what I did. Luck is important in life, but in combat it is crucial. The bravest things are often done with God the only witness.

I was darn lucky, and that's an understatement, but we should never forget, on this V-J Day, the boys who never came back and should receive the medals.

You've got to be careful. You can become a professional hero. There's an awful sadness with that. You spend your life going from ceremony to ceremony. You have to move on. Life is a long-distance race. If too much of your life is centered on things you did early- there's a sadness.

1945

• I can't talk very well but I want to say that this is the 'swellest' thing that ever happened to me. A heck of a lot sweller than getting the medal from the President.
  • Public remark made upon returning to Fairfield, Connecticut to a parade in his honor, following the Medal of Honor award ceremony at the White House on 23 August 1945. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 174

• I was darn lucky, and that's an understatement, but we should never forget, on this V-J Day, the boys who never came back and should receive the medals.
  • Public remark made in Fairfield, Connecticut the night of 1 September 1945, as Fairfield held celebrations of the end of World War II ahead of the officially-designated date for V-J Day on 2 September 1945. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 175

Post-war

• Everyone has a breaking point. You have a reservoir, but it can dry up if you are in combat too long. If a person had been in combat too long, he deserved some special consideration.
  • Reflection on the effect of sustained combat service on soldiers while he commanded Company A, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 137

• You've got to be careful. You can become a professional hero. There's an awful sadness with that. You spend your life going from ceremony to ceremony. You have to move on. Life is a long-distance race. If too much of your life is centered on things you did early- there's a sadness. You can only stand up and hear what you did a few times. It's something you did at one time. There is also an embarrassment about the killing aspect. You don't want to be known for killing.
  • Comments on being a Medal of Honor recipient in an interview many years after 1970. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 175

• Anyone would have done what I did. Luck is important in life, but in combat it is crucial. The bravest things are often done with God the only witness.
  • Remark made to William Wallace. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 193

1970 interview

• Some people blame their misfortunes on it. It must be put in perspective. It is a purely personal thing. Your country does not owe you anything because you received this medal. After all, it was my [good] fortune that somebody wasn't shooting straight.
  • Comment on the Medal of Honor and the mixed effect it has on different recipients. As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 192

August 1982 visit to 15th Infantry Regiment

Daly visited his former unit, the U.S. Army's 15th Infantry Regiment, in August 1982 and made a speech during his visit to their duty station at the time in Kitzingen, West Germany.

• When things hang in the balance, it is the infantry that a country calls on. It falls on them to close with the enemy and decide the day... We lost some of our best people... They were often men who took the most chances and without whom you could never win a battle. They came from every walk of life- they represented the very best of my generation. You would have been proud to serve with them. As a platoon leader and company commander they sustained me then just as they sustain me now.
  • As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 184

• Every man deserves a cause greater than himself... All of us here are privileged people, for we have been called to defend the most noble experiment the world has ever known- that man can but seek his destiny while living in freedom.
  • As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 184

• Without courage there is no protection for our other values. Every man loses his courage at times. All of us should pray every morning that God will give us the courage to do what is right. And remember when you pray that if you rise at all a better man- your prayer has been answered. Never underestimate the good that one man can do... Remember us as long as you can. We will never forget you.
  • As quoted by Stephen J. Ochs, A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient (2012), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, hardcover first edition, p. 184

Quotes about Daly

Through the serendipity of a shared name — my mail to him; his to me — we became acquainted. Through a shared love of writing we became friends. In addition to his other attributes — compassion, humility, gentleness — he was a fine writer. ~ Michael Daly

It was one of those hot days and it got to be about a hundred degrees, and old Mike just got fed up and threw his books in the corner, and said, 'See ya later, Doc, I'm going to war.' Next thing we heard, he was in Italy with the 3rd Division, where he later was awarded the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield promotion. ~ George S. Patton IV

• Early in the morning of 18 April 1945, he led his company through the shell-battered, sniper-infested wreckage of Nuremberg, Germany. When blistering machinegun fire caught his unit in an exposed position, he ordered his men to take cover, dashed forward alone, and, as bullets whined about him, shot the 3-man guncrew with his carbine. Continuing the advance at the head of his company, he located an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers which threatened friendly armor. He again went forward alone, secured a vantage point and opened fire on the Germans. Immediately he became the target for concentrated machine pistol and rocket fire, which blasted the rubble about him. Calmly, he continued to shoot at the patrol until he had killed all 6 enemy infantrymen. Continuing boldly far in front of his company, he entered a park, where as his men advanced, a German machinegun opened up on them without warning. With his carbine, he killed the gunner; and then, from a completely exposed position, he directed machinegun fire on the remainder of the crew until all were dead. In a final duel, he wiped out a third machinegun emplacement with rifle fire at a range of 10 yards. By fearlessly engaging in 4 single-handed fire fights with a desperate, powerfully armed enemy, Lt. DALY, voluntarily taking all major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity, killed 15 Germans, silenced 3 enemy machineguns and wiped out an entire enemy patrol. His heroism during the lone bitter struggle with fanatical enemy forces was an inspiration to the valiant Americans who took Nuremberg
  • Citation for the Medal of Honor awarded to Daly, presented at the White House by Harry S. Truman on 23 August 1945. As quoted on Michael Joseph Daly, Congressional Medal of Honor Society

• Alumni, of course, were in the military from the very earliest stages of the war, some even before Pearl Harbor. By early 1943 over two hundred alumni were on active duty and a year later this figure had climbed to four hundred. Occasionally an alumnus would return to the School and invariably end up by speaking to the assembled student body and providing a firsthand account of action in the theater from which he had come. Notices of service awards to alumni were read. (The Prep could boast of a Medal of Honor awardee in Michael Daly '41.) And sadly, word would inevitably arrive, from time to time, of a death in action. (More than a dozen alumni were to give their lives before VJ Day).
  • William S. Abell, Fifty Years At Garrett Park, 1919-1969: A History of the New Georgetown Preparatory School (1970), p. 69

• Merrell's Medal of Honor was one of the last two awarded for deeds during the ground war in Europe. The other was earned the same day by another soldier of the 15th Infantry, 3d Division, Lieutenant Michael Daly of Company A. Daly, a twenty-year-old from Southport, Connecticut, had fought in every major battle from his days as a private first class with the 18th Infantry on Omaha Beach to Nuremberg, where he fought with the 3d Division. Already holding the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and a battlefield commission, Daly "felt an obligation to protect the surviving members of the company. You do all the time. Maybe, in a way, more than normal, knowing the war was nearly over." Daly acted as the lead man for his troops as they fought toward the center of war-destroyed Nuremberg, although as commander of Company A, he could have relegated this task to others. The city was contested from one pile of rubble to another, each pile a small fortress for hardened SS troops who ferociously resisted every inch of the American advance. For four days the Americans went about the bloody task of rooting them out.
  • Above and Beyond: A History of the Medal of Honor from the Civil War to Vietnam (1985) by Editors of the Boston Publishing Company, Boston: Boston Publishing Company, p. 228

• April 18 was the second day of the attack. Daly was scouting a rail bridge that led into the city when a German machine gun caught him and his men in the open. He charged forward, running to within fifty yards of the Germans before he opened fire with his carbine and killed the three gunners. He again pushed ahead of his company, advancing on a house that contained a German antitank gun. In the words of one of his men, he was "taking his life in his hands and we all knew it." As he worked his way to the house, rifle fire kicked up the dust around him. With only his carbine, Daly killed all six Germans manning the antitank equipment. Then, when he saw a long-time friend fall in the assault, Daly, in "hot blood," twice more led attacks on German machine-gun positions, each time moving to within pointblank range while directing the fire of his troops on the Germans. At one critical point, he seized a discarded M1, crawled forward to within ten yards of a German machine-gun nest, and killed the Gunners, securing the position. Daly was wounded badly in the face the following day. Once he recovered he was shipped home. Like so many medal recipients, Daly refused to see his award as a testament to individual heroism. "The medal is very important to me..." he later said, "to insure the memory of those who died."
  • Above and Beyond: A History of the Medal of Honor from the Civil War to Vietnam (1985) by Editors of the Boston Publishing Company, Boston: Boston Publishing Company, p. 228-229

• Michael Daly entered West Point in 1942, but he left after one year to enlist as a private in the infantry. He trained in England and waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 1st Infantry Division, known as "the Big Red One." After moving through France and into Germany, Daly was wounded near Aachen; he recuperated in England, then returned to action assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division and was given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant.
  Early on the morning of April 18, 1945, First Lieutenant Daly was in command of an infantry company moving through the rubble on the outskirts of Nuremberg, where bombed-out houses provided good cover for German snipers. As the Americans were going down the city's main thoroughfare, an enemy machine gun suddenly opened up from across a city square. As his men fell all around him, Daly charged the German position and killed the three-man crew with his carbine. Continuing on ahead of his unit, he came upon an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers entrenched in the shell of a house and ready to ambush American tanks. He again opened fire with his carbine. Though the Germans responded by firing rockets, he held his ground and kept shooting until he had killed all six members of the patrol.
  As he continued to move ahead of his company, Daly entered what had been a city park. A German machine gun began firing from close range. When one of his men was killed, he picked up the soldier's rifle and used it to shoot both enemy gunners. In all, he killed fifteen Germans that afternoon and took out three machine-gun positions. The next day, as he was leading his company into action, Daly was shot in the face; the bullet entered at one ear and exited the opposite cheek. Falling to the ground, he felt that he might drown in his own blood until one of his men cleared his throat.
  Daly received medical treatment in England and in the States until mid-1946 but was well enough to travel to the White House on August 23, 1945, to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman. The next day, he was back home in Connecticut, riding in a motorcade. Alongside him was his father, Paul Daly, a World War I recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who had twice been recommended for the Medal of Honor. The elder Daly had reentered the Army after Pearl Harbor, was severely wounded while serving as a regimental commander in northern France, and was sent back to the States to recuperate. Sitting next to him that day, Michael wished his father had received the medal he was wearing around his neck.
  • Peter Collier, Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty (2003), by Peter Collier (text) & Nick Del Calzo (photographs), New York: Artisan, October 2006 second edition, p. 54

• The Opinion page is an arena — sometimes a battlefield — for the exchange of ideas. Fire from the right, fire from the left. Fire from behind and from the front. And the newspaper, of course, fires its own salvos.
  When I was the editor of the opinion page, a ceasefire, in the form of an especially thoughtful op-ed or letter, was always welcome.
  One of the thoughtful people during my tenure was a guy named Ron Kurtz, of Monroe.
  In a letter published on these pages earlier this month, Kurtz suggested “rededicating military posts named after Confederate generals with names of those who received the Medal of Honor for their selfless heroism on the battlefields.”
  That’s a grand idea. Not only were these Confederate generals trying to tear the country apart, some were spectacularly inept. Let me just seize on Kurtz’s idea and push it forward a couple of notches:
  Name a base after Michael J. Daly, of Fairfield — no relation to me — who was awarded the medal in August 1945 by President Harry S. Truman.
  Daly was awarded the medal for his “selfless heroism,” as Kurtz put it, in the Allied assault on the ruined city of Nuremberg in April of that year.
  While advancing over a wall — a task he took on rather than sending other men — he was shot in the neck. One of his men cleared Daly’s airway of tissue so he could breathe. Daly survived the war and died in Fairfield in 2008 at age 83.
  • Michael Daly, Michael J. Daly: Renamed military bases could heal some wounds, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 June 2020

• Through the serendipity of a shared name — my mail to him; his to me — we became acquainted. Through a shared love of writing we became friends. In addition to his other attributes — compassion, humility, gentleness — he was a fine writer.
  Some of his works — scores of brief but beautifully composed notes he wrote to me regarding this column or that, and a blazingly powerful short autobiographic sketch he prepared for delivery to a high school class — are among my treasured possessions.
  Were a soldier in training — or an officer or drill instructor teaching those young soldiers — be curious enough to look up the story of Michael J. Daly, they’d see — far beyond the heroics of that long-ago day in Nuremberg — the qualities that constitute the citizen-warrior.
  • Michael Daly, Michael J. Daly: Renamed military bases could heal some wounds, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 June 2020

• Author Stephen Ochs will tell the fascinating tale of late Fairfield native Michael J. Daly - from his "hell-raising youth" to his heroics on the WWII battlefield to his tireless voluntarism at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport - at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, 2013, at the Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield. Ochs' talk is free and open to the public.
  Ochs, an instructor in the history department at Georgetown Preparatory School of Maryland, is the author of "A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient" (Texas A & M Press, 2012). His book chronicles Capt. Daly’s memorable life, revealing how a family disappointment who was kicked out of West Point evolved into a man devoted to others. Starting as an enlisted man, Daly rose through the ranks to become a captain and trusted company commander, bravely earning three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with a "V" attachment for valor, two Purple Hearts and the Medal of Honor.
  After returning from war, Daly was a longtime board member at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, where he championed the cause of the indigent poor and terminally ill. He was posthumously awarded the first Fairfield Award from the Fairfield Museum and History Center for his life of service. The Museum is co-sponsoring his appearance at the Bookstore with the University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program and its Learning for a Lifetime Program. Ochs' book has received high praise from critics and fellow authors alike. "I'm not aware of recent works that so well document events in small units, particularly those of the campaign in Southern France and Germany," wrote Edward G. Miller, author of "A Dark and Bloody Ground." "The author’s superb source materials from the Daly family and veterans is what set this story apart."
  A Washington Post reviewer cited Ochs' ability to interweave Daly's career with the rise of his Irish Catholic family. "Throughout the narrative, Daly's tactical brilliance in leading a squad, a platoon and a company shine through," wrote Bing West.
  • Fairfield News, Fairfield University, "Fairfield war hero Michael J. Daly is the topic of author's talk at Fairfield University Bookstore", 07 March 2013

• World War II significantly impacted school life and would draw over 400 alumni into the armed forces.
  One of those, Captain Michael J. Daly ’45, received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the battle for Nuremberg, Germany, in April 1945. Daly later recalled that when President Harry S. Truman draped the medal around his neck at the White House on August 23, 1945, he felt a mixture of pride and humility, as well as grief for those he considered the real heroes – “the guys who didn’t come home.” Twelve of those were fellow alumni of Georgetown Prep, who were drawn from classes that spanned the 15 years from 1928 through 1943.
  • Georgetown Preparatory School, "History"

• It was one of those hot days and it got to be about a hundred degrees, and old Mike just got fed up and threw his books in the corner, and said, 'See ya later, Doc, I'm going to war.' Next thing we heard, he was in Italy with the 3rd Division, where he later was awarded the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield promotion.
  • George S. Patton IV on his time attending the United States Military Academy alongside Daly in the 1941-1942 academic year; Daly had a mixed record at West Point and dropped out to enlist before completing his first year there. As quoted by Brian M. Sobel, The Fighting Pattons (1997), p. 27