Daniel Daly, double Medal of Honor recipient

"The fightingest Marine"

Only 19 American servicemen have ever received the Medal of Honor (The Medal of Honor), the nation’s highest military decoration, twice. Some of these double awards are relics of past practices no longer in use today. Five men received two medals, from two different branches (such as the Army and the Navy), for the same act, something that can no longer happen. Some others, serving in the Navy, received one or both medals for actions of valor performed in peacetime, such as saving men who fell overboard.

Daniel Joseph Daly (1873-1937) falls in neither of those categories, having received his medals for two separate combat actions. In fact, he’s one of only two Marines who could make that claim. What’s perhaps most telling of his courage and toughness is the accolade he once received: “the fightingest Marine I ever knew…It was an object lesson to have served with him.” What makes those words special is that they came from Major General Smedley Butler – the other Marine to get two Medals of Honor for two separate actions!

Daly spent his youth in New York working as a newsboy and laborer. At 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) and weighing 134 lb (68 kg), he was a small man but had a big fight in him, occasionally fighting as a semi-professional boxer. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at the age of 25, in 1899, and was posted to the Asiatic Fleet onboard the cruiser USS Newark. In 1900, the Newark steamed to China to participate in the fight against the Boxer Rebellion, a large-scale anti-Westerner, anti-foreigner, anti-Christian uprising brought on by the Western and Japanese exploitation of the country.

Over the summer, the Legation Quarter of Beijing, the area that housed foreign diplomats and offices, was besieged by the Boxers and Imperial Chinese troops. The fortifications of the quarter included a section of the 45-ft (15 m) tall Tartar Wall, a section of Beijing's ancient defenses. During the siege, heavy Chinese fire forced the American defenders of the wall to retreat. If the Chinese managed to get on top of the wall, they could have poured gunfire directly into the nearby American Legation compound from above. On August 14, Private Daly and his commanding officer, Captain Newt Hamill Hall, crawled back onto the wall to mount a defense.

A work party was supposed to show up to reinforce the defenses, but they were nowhere to be seen, so Hall left to find them, leaving Daly alone for the night. On the same night, about 400 Chinese besiegers launched an assault against the wall, supported by snipers. All other Marines were bogged down along other sections of the defensive works, and no reinforcements were available. In the morning, a battered but living Daly greeted the belated reinforcements, with around 200 dead or dying Chinese below the wall. This action earned Daly his first Medal of Honor.

Daly was sent to the Philippines in 1901 to serve in the Philippine-American war. Here he got in trouble with his own superiors: he was court-martialed and sentenced to three weeks in the brig for being drunk while on post, then was court-martialed again a few weeks later for more drunkenness and verbal abuse of the sergeant of the guard.

Daly was posted to various ships in the Caribbean over the next couple of years, serving in Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico and Portsmouth, and reaching the rank of sergeant by 1909. On March 14, 1911, while garrisoned in Puerto Rico, he spotted a gasoline fire onboard the river steamer Springfield that threatened to reach the powder magazines. Daly led a group of nine Marines and sailors and managed to put out the fire, but had to spend weeks in a hospital with severe burns. He received commendations from the Secretary of the Navy and the Commandant of the Marines for saving the ship.

Tensions between the United States and Mexico were running high in the spring of 1914, largely caused by America's meddling in Mexico's internal affairs. On April 21, 1914, U.S. forces landed near, besieged and eventually captured the Mexican city of Veracruz. During the street fighting, Daly's platoon was pinned down in an arroyo, a dry watercourse, by heavy sniper fire coming from a rooftop. Daly crawled out of the arroyo and approached the house from behind, and single-handedly dispatched all seven Mexican fighters inside, shooting five and killing two with his bayonet.

In 1915, U.S. Marines occupied the island of Haiti in a fight against the Cacos insurgents. During the course of the occupation, several of Daly's comrades were taken prisoner. He dug a tunnel under the wall of the prison they were in, killed the guards, and liberated his fellow Marines.

On the night of October 24-25, Gunnery Sergeant Daly was part of a 40-man mounted patrol under the command of Major Smedley Butler, the only other Marine to be awarded two Medals of Honor for two separate actions. During the night, they were ambushed from three sides by a Caco group about 400 men firing from the cover of bushes in the dark. The patrol fought its way forward to a patch of high ground that they could hold effectively, but they lost their only machine gun: the weapon was being carried by a horse, which was shot while in a river, and sank to the bottom along with its cargo. Acting on his own initiative, Daly left his position, swam the river under constant enemy fire, retrieved the gun and the ammunition (weighing a total of 200 lb (91 kg)) from the river bottom, and returned it to the Marine camp. In the morning, the force split up into three squads, moved out in different directions, and surprised and scattered their ambushers. Daly led one of the squads, and both he and the other two squad leaders were decorated with a Medal of Honor for their actions.

Three weeks later, Daly fought in the attack on Fort Rivière, which ended with the capture of the Cacos-held fort and American victory in the First Caco War. Captain William P. Upshur, who was one of the other two men that led squads against the Caco ambush in late October, wrote that Daly showed "exceptional coolness and leadership of the men under fire" in the one-and-a-half months leading up to the last battle, an accolade that earned Daly another letter of commendation from the Secretary of the Navy. For his part, Major Butler wrote that Daly was "the most conspicuous figure among the enlisted personnel. Daly is a real red-blooded marine and it was an object lesson to have served with him."

By this time, World War I was already raging in Europe, and the United States entered the war in April 1917. Daly, promoted to first sergeant by then, arrived to Europe in November. He would be wounded thrice before the war's end, once shot in the shoulder and twice taking shrapnel in the leg. His most famous exploits of the war occurred at the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918, the bloody fight that put the U.S. Marine Corps in the spotlight of world attention and established them as a formidable fighting force.

On June 5, a German artillery shell landed in an ammunition dump and started a fire. Daly, already having fought fire once onboard the Springfield, rushed into the conflagration once against at the head of a small group and managed to put out the flames before they could have ignited the ammunition.

The Marines went on the offensive the next day, taking up positions in an exposed wheat field 400 yards (370 m) from the edge of the forest that was occupied by heavily dug-in German forces. After nightfall, Daly exposed himself to enemy fire by walking out in the open to visit every single one of his men's positions, cheering them up, improving their morale and coordinating their actions.

Several days later, a German machine gun crew advanced on Daly's position. He single-handedly attacked the crew with three grenades and his pistol, shooting the German commanding officer and taking 14 prisoners. He received the Navy Cross, the Army's Distinguished Service Cross and the French Médaille militaire for his actions over a six-day period. Some sources claim that he was recommended for a third Medal of Honor, but several officers vetoed the recommendation on the grounds that nobody could ever deserve a third one, and that he received the lesser (but still very noteworthy) decorations as compensation.

Long-standing Marine tradition holds that Daniel Daly was the man who rallied his men at Belleau Woods with a cry that has since become immortal: "Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?" Historians now believe that the line was actually either uttered by someone else, or was the creation of a war correspondent. For his part, Daly himself later claimed he said "For Christ's sake, men—come on! Do you want to live forever?" 

Daly fought in several more battles before the war ended. He left active duty for the Marine Corps Reserves in 1919, and fully retired at the rank of sergeant major in 1929. He was offered an officer's promotion many times in his career, but he always refused, saying he would prefer to be an outstanding sergeant than "just another officer." Never having married, he spent his civilian life in New York, living with his sister, working as a security guard at a Wall Street bank, and avoiding publicity. He died of a heart attack at the age of 63 and was buried near his home, at Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn.

A Fletcher-class destroyer was christened USS Daly in honor of Daniel Daly and served during and after World War II. Join us on our tours to explore iconic sites where other Medal of Honor recipients fought, and pay tribute to notable recipients such as Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who landed on D-Day in Normandy on Utah Beach (Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Jr.).

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