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This was an amazing man.A Lt. at age 20 performing incredible acts of valor, 3 weeks before VE Day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/us/29daly.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Michael Daly, 83, Dies; Won Medal of Honor
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: July 29, 2008
Michael J. Daly, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his single-handed offensive against German troops during the battle for Nuremberg in World War II, died Friday at his home in Fairfield, Conn. He was 83.
In 1945, Michael Daly returned to Fairfield, Conn., a war hero.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his brother-in-law William N. Wallace.
On the morning of April 18, 1945, Lieutenant Daly, serving in the Army’s Third Infantry Division, was leading his company through the shell-battered ruins of Nuremberg when the men came under machine-gun fire.
Lieutenant Daly moved ahead alone and engaged in four separate firefights. He destroyed three machine-gun emplacements — the final one by firing his rifle from a range of 10 yards — and killed 15 Germans. The next day, he was shot in the face and evacuated.
On Aug. 23, 1945, having been promoted to captain, he received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, from President Harry S. Truman at the White House. The citation credited him with “voluntarily taking all major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity.” He was also a two-time recipient of the Silver Star.
Michael Joseph Daly was born in New York City. His father, Paul, a West Point graduate, had been highly decorated for valor in World War I. Michael Daly entered the United States Military Academy in 1942. “I went to West Point and was a failure at the academy, a mediocre student with severe disciplinary problems, on special confinement, continuously walking off punishment tours,” The Connecticut Post quoted Mr. Daly as telling students at Fairfield High School in 2004. “At the end of my plebe year I left and was glad to leave. But there is something about the place that sticks to your ribs.”
Having joined the Army as a private, he took part in the D-Day invasion with the First Infantry Division and later received a battlefield commission. The day after the Medal of Honor ceremony, he was honored at a parade in Fairfield with his father, a colonel, who had re-entered the Army and had been wounded in France.
After the war, Mr. Daly was a salesman for an oil company and invested in real estate.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret Wallace Daly; his son, Michael, and his daughter, Deirdre Daly, both of Fairfield; his sisters Bevan Daly Patterson of Garrison, N.Y., and Alison Daly Gerard of New York City; a stepson, W. Sanford Miller of Chadds Ford, Pa.; a stepdaughter, Blair Miller of Asheville, N.C.; and three grandsons. His brother, T. F. Gilroy Daly, who died in 1996, was a federal judge in Connecticut who had gained prominence as a lawyer for helping win the exoneration of Peter Reilly, who had been convicted of killing his mother in a highly publicized case of the 1970s.
When he spoke at Fairfield High School, Michael Daly reflected on his Medal of Honor citation. “We all lose our courage at times,” he said. “It is something we pray for in the morning, that God will give us the strength and courage to do what is right.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/us/29daly.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Michael Daly, 83, Dies; Won Medal of Honor
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: July 29, 2008
Michael J. Daly, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his single-handed offensive against German troops during the battle for Nuremberg in World War II, died Friday at his home in Fairfield, Conn. He was 83.
In 1945, Michael Daly returned to Fairfield, Conn., a war hero.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his brother-in-law William N. Wallace.
On the morning of April 18, 1945, Lieutenant Daly, serving in the Army’s Third Infantry Division, was leading his company through the shell-battered ruins of Nuremberg when the men came under machine-gun fire.
Lieutenant Daly moved ahead alone and engaged in four separate firefights. He destroyed three machine-gun emplacements — the final one by firing his rifle from a range of 10 yards — and killed 15 Germans. The next day, he was shot in the face and evacuated.
On Aug. 23, 1945, having been promoted to captain, he received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, from President Harry S. Truman at the White House. The citation credited him with “voluntarily taking all major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity.” He was also a two-time recipient of the Silver Star.
Michael Joseph Daly was born in New York City. His father, Paul, a West Point graduate, had been highly decorated for valor in World War I. Michael Daly entered the United States Military Academy in 1942. “I went to West Point and was a failure at the academy, a mediocre student with severe disciplinary problems, on special confinement, continuously walking off punishment tours,” The Connecticut Post quoted Mr. Daly as telling students at Fairfield High School in 2004. “At the end of my plebe year I left and was glad to leave. But there is something about the place that sticks to your ribs.”
Having joined the Army as a private, he took part in the D-Day invasion with the First Infantry Division and later received a battlefield commission. The day after the Medal of Honor ceremony, he was honored at a parade in Fairfield with his father, a colonel, who had re-entered the Army and had been wounded in France.
After the war, Mr. Daly was a salesman for an oil company and invested in real estate.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret Wallace Daly; his son, Michael, and his daughter, Deirdre Daly, both of Fairfield; his sisters Bevan Daly Patterson of Garrison, N.Y., and Alison Daly Gerard of New York City; a stepson, W. Sanford Miller of Chadds Ford, Pa.; a stepdaughter, Blair Miller of Asheville, N.C.; and three grandsons. His brother, T. F. Gilroy Daly, who died in 1996, was a federal judge in Connecticut who had gained prominence as a lawyer for helping win the exoneration of Peter Reilly, who had been convicted of killing his mother in a highly publicized case of the 1970s.
When he spoke at Fairfield High School, Michael Daly reflected on his Medal of Honor citation. “We all lose our courage at times,” he said. “It is something we pray for in the morning, that God will give us the strength and courage to do what is right.”
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