He landed at Omaha Beach with Big Red One, fought his way to Nuremberg, Germany, and received three Silver Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the Medal of Honor for single-handedly killing 15 German soldiers and destroying three machine gun nests . . .
Born on September 15, 1924, Michael J. Daly, the son of a World War I veteran who had been recommended twice for the Medal of Honor, grew up hearing his father's stories about the Great War and the importance of honor, commitment and duty.
But he didn't seem to listen. As a rebellious teenager, the Fairfield, Connecticut native was kicked out of boarding school for disciplinary issues (he was caught drinking at a bar) and left West Point because of poor grades and a less-than-stellar attitude.
“I went to West Point and was a failure at the academy, a mediocre student with severe disciplinary problems, on special confinement, and continuously walking off punishment tours,” he later recalled.
In 1942, determined to make his father proud and fight for his country, he enlisted in the Army and was soon on his way to Europe.
Over the next eleven months, the 18-year-old infantryman would receive a battlefield commission and three Silver Stars and earn the reputation as a combat leader with a "high degree of aggressiveness, cool courage, and calculated daring."
On April 18, 1945, Lt. Daly, serving with the Third Infantry Division, was leading his company through the bombed-out ruins of Nuremberg when his men came under a withering barrage of small arms and machine gun fire.
Telling his men to take cover, the 20-year-old lieutenant "dashed forward alone, and, as bullets whined about him, shot a 3-man guncrew with his carbine."
With men getting hit and falling all around him, he then located an enemy patrol carrying rocket launchers and despite the hail of German fire now directed at his position, systematically eliminated all six soldiers in the unit.
But the Germans refused to back down.
Inching his way from one bunker to the next, the 6'3", 190-pound lieutenant destroyed two more machine gun nests, taking out the final gun crew with an M1 he had picked up from a dead American soldier.
For his "heroism during the lone bitter struggle against fanatical enemy forces" and for his extraordinary courage that inspired his men to continue to the attack and take Nuremberg, Lt. Daly was awarded the Medal of Honor.
"Captain Mike Daly was the finest officer and bravest man I have ever known," one of his sergeants later said.
Postscript:
The day after his heroic actions at Nuremberg, Daly, exhausted but still fighting, was shot in the head, the bullet entering through his ear and exiting at his opposite cheek.
Miraculously, the seemingly indomitable Daly survived the wound. He returned to the States, spent a year recovering, and in 1946 was discharged from the Army. He later started a business, married, and had two children.
Always interested in helping others, he raised millions of dollars for Bridgeport's St. Vincent's Hospital and over time became an advocate for the indigent and terminally ill.
Talking years later with local high school students about his WWII experiences and Medal of Honor, Daly remarked. "We all lose our courage at times. It's something we pray for in the morning, that God will give us the strength and courage to do what is right.”
Mike Daly, the once-rebellious teenager who found the "strength and courage do what was right," died on July 25, 2008, at the age of 83.