Daniel Joseph Daly was born in Glen Cove, New York, on November 11, 1873. As a boy, he worked as a newsboy, and in his teenage years he became an amateur boxer. Standing only five foot six and weighing 132 pounds, he was not an imposing figure, but his tenacity would define his life. Tales of the Spanish-American War stirred his desire to serve, and on January 10, 1899, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
He received his initial training at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but the war ended before he could finish. He was instead assigned to the Asiatic Fleet. In China, a secret organization called the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists was leading an anti-imperialist, anti-foreign, and anti-Christian uprising against Western and Japanese influence. The movement became known as the Boxer Rebellion.
On June 20, 1900, the Boxers laid siege to the foreign delegation district in Peking, where all the foreign diplomats lived. The next day, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on every foreign nation with diplomatic ties in China. Daly and other Marines were deployed aboard the USS New York, bound for Tokyo Bay and then Peking. After arriving, the Marines took positions on the Tartar Wall, but enemy fire drove them back.
They eventually retook the position on August 14. Following that action, Captain Newt Hall and the other men left with reinforcements and supplies to rebuild fortifications. Private Dan Daly was left standing guard entirely alone. It did not take long for the enemy to strike, seeing a lone man on guard and believing he could be easily defeated.
The Boxers attacked with rifles, torches, and swords. Daly had no choice but to stand his ground. He may have been armed with a single machine gun, though some accounts say he had only a bolt-action rifle and bayonet. The Boxers attacked throughout the night, and every time, Daly stopped them.
According to Marine Corps legend, when reinforcements arrived in the morning, the bodies of around 200 dead Boxers littered the ground. For this action, Daly received his first Medal of Honor. The official citation recognized his extraordinary heroism while serving with the Captain Newt Hall detachment, 1st Regiment, during the Battle of Peking on August 14, 1900, and noted his meritorious conduct in the presence of the enemy. His next great act of bravery came in 1915, during the United States occupation of Haiti.
That year, President Woodrow Wilson ordered 330 Marines to Port-au-Prince, acting on a specific order from the Secretary of the Navy to protect American and foreign interests. Daly, now a gunnery sergeant, was leading a 35-man platoon on a reconnaissance mission in the Haitian countryside. On October 24, 1915, the Marines were crossing a river when they were ambushed. An estimated 400 Haitian rebels fired on the platoon from all sides.
The Marines managed to battle their way across the river and set up a defensive position, but their situation was grim. Their machine gun had been lost in the river, they were badly outnumbered, and night was falling. The position was safe for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before the rebels broke their formation. In the middle of the night, Daly slipped away from the defensive position and returned to the river where his fellow Marines had suffered casualties hours earlier.
Moving stealthily beneath the dark surface of the water, he searched for the lost machine gun. He found it, strapped it to his back, and returned to his platoon. With the machine gun recovered, the Marines formed a much stronger defense and poured fire into the rebels. By the afternoon, the rebels had been defeated.
Daly’s decision had very likely saved his platoon, and had he been spotted, it would have cost him his life. For this, he was awarded his second Medal of Honor. By the time the First World War came around, Daly was 44 years old, and he was still serving as a Marine. In June 1918, within a single week, he rescued six wounded Marines who were pinned down by heavy enemy fire, captured 13 German soldiers entirely on his own, and single-handedly captured machine-gun nests using only a Colt .
45 and a few hand grenades, something that was virtually impossible to do without being wounded. His most famous moment came during the Battle of Belleau Wood. Daly and his men were pinned down and outnumbered two to one. The Marines had been fighting the Germans for hours, and many were beginning to lose hope.
Seeing this, Daly rose up among his men and shouted, for Christ’s sake men, come on, do you want to live forever? He then led a successful charge. The phrase has lived on for decades, though it is often misremembered in Marine Corps lore as, come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever? The Medal of Honor is the highest military honor for valor in the United States, and it is incredibly rare for anyone to receive it more than once.
To date, it has been awarded twice to the same person only 19 times. Because of that rarity, many believed awarding Daly a third Medal of Honor would not have been appropriate, even though he deserved it. Instead, for his actions at Belleau Wood, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross. His citation for the Distinguished Service Cross recognized repeated deeds of heroism and great service while serving with the 73rd Company, 6th Regiment, 2nd Division on June 5, 7, and 10, 1918, near Lucy-le-Bocage and in the attack on Bourseches, France.
On June 5, at risk of his life, Daly extinguished a fire in an ammunition dump. On June 7, while his position was under violent bombardment, he visited all the gun crews of his company along the front to encourage his men. On June 10, he attacked an enemy machine-gun emplacement unassisted and captured it using hand grenades and his automatic pistol. On the same day, during a German attack on Bourseches, he brought in wounded under fire.
Daly retired from the Marine Corps on February 6, 1929. He passed away on April 27, 1937. His memory lived on in the form of an American destroyer, the USS Daly, commissioned on March 10, 1943, and decommissioned on May 2, 1960.
Dan Daly was an accomplished and selfless Marine who showed his determination to stand his ground and protect his fellow Marines time and again.