Gunnery Sgt. Daniel Daly was born in 1873 in New York. A warrior by nature, Daly enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps to fight in the Spanish-American War in 1899, but the war was over by the time he finished his basic training. Instead, he was deployed to China in 1900 to put down the Boxer Rebellion. Defending a wall bastion by himself and suffering numerous wounds, Daly inflicted 200 casualties until reinforcements arrived, and received his first Medal of Honor.
For his second Medal of Honor, his citation reads:
"Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly, United States Marine Corps, on the night of October 24, 1915, three officers and 35 enlisted men were attacked by 400 Cacos while crossing a river in a deep ravine concealed in bushes about 100 yards from a fort. The Marine detachment fought its way forward to a good position which it maintained during the night, although subjected to a continuous fire from the Cacos.
"At daybreak the Marines in three squads under the command of Captain Upshur, Lieutenant Osterman and Gunnery Sergeant Daly advanced in three different directions, surprising and scattering the enemy in all directions. Had one squad failed, not one man of the party would have lived to tell the tale. Gunnery Sergeant Daly, 15th Company, during the operations was the most consipicuous figure among the enlisted men."
Daly is famous for yelling, in this battle, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"
(So no, it wasn't Johnny Rico of the Mobile Infantry for you scifi nerds)
Daly saw his service in the Marine Corps as a vocation and never married. After serving on the front lines for almost two years in WWI, he moved to the Marine Reserve and spent the last 17 years of his life as a bank guard. He turned down numerous offers for officership because he preferred to be an "outstanding sergeant" than just another officer.
Um, no, not quite.
ReplyDeleteFirst Sergeant Daly shouted "Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" to encourage his Marines as they charged German positions 3 years later during the Battle of Belleau Wood of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign in France, in June of 1918.
For numerous conspicuously heroic actions during that battle, over multiple days, instead of a third MoH, he won the DSC you see pinned on his chest in the picture in this post, as well as the Navy Cross for the same actions.
Nice blog, BTW.