SGT, MAJ, DAN DALY’S MEDALS DONATED TO THE MARINE CORPS SUBMITTED BY: MAJ, DUAN K, SINCLAIR, JR, The medals of SgtMaj Daniel Daly, USMC, were donated to the Ma- rine Corps along with a large number of his citations, warrants, papers, several photographs, and other assorted memorabilia. The donor, Mr. Burton J. Loeb of Massapequa, New York, Daly’s nephew, presented the material to then Assistant Commandant General Samuel Jaskilka at a ceremony arranged by the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office, New York. It was the office’s Public Affairs Chief, GySgt Robert L. Hoffman, who was instrumental in persuading Mr. Loeb to make his generous donation. The medal collection contains SgtMaj Daly’s two Medals of Honor, his Distinguished Service Cross, his Navy Cross, French decora- tions, and all of his campaign medals. The only medal missing is his Good Conduct Medal which disappeared years ago. The Daly col- lection is understandably of inestimable value to the Marine Corps. SgtMaj Daly and MajGen Smedley D. Butler are the only two Marines to have been awarded the Medal of Honor for two separate actions. Dan Daly’s 21 years of active service were filled with wars, large and small, expeditions, landings, and seven tours at sea. He enlisted on January i0, 1899 at the age of 25. Not a big man, the new recruit carried 135 pounds on a 5’5" frame. In May of 1900 he was serving as a member of Capt Newt H. Hall’s Marine Detachment in the cruiser USS Newark when Chinese "Boxers" began threatening the safety of the Peking legations. Dalydisembarked the Newark at Taku Bar on May ISth along with Capt Hall and 25 other detachment Marines and, with Capt JohnT. Myers’ USS Oregon detachment, headed north. On the 31st the Marines entered Peking accompanied by a mixed force of French, Russian, Austrian, Japanese, Italian, and German sailors and Marines they had picked up in Tientsin. On June 6th the Boxers cut the rail to the south. A week later the siege of the legations began in ernest; it was to last 55 days. On the night of July iSth, Capt Hall and-then-Pvt Daly set out to reconnoiter a barricade position on the Tartar Wall. According to the plan, if the two were not attacked during their reconnais- * Reprinted from: Newsletter of the Marine Corps Historical Program. 1978. 25 sance, a working party was to come out with sandbags and construct the emplacement. The reconnaissance was made; there was no attack; but there also was no working party. Despite stray shots from front and rear and the isolation of the site, Daly volunteered to stay and hold off any Boxers while Hall returned for the working party. For his coolness and bravery under fire, he was awarded his first Medal of Honor on December Ii, 1901. He earned his second in 1915 as agunnery sergeant inHaiti. Dur- ing a patrol by three squads of the 15th Company, 2ndRegiment, the Marines were ambushed by a large Caco force while fording a swift stream in the bottom of adeep ravine. Fighting their way to a good defensive position a mile away, the Marines were subjected to con- tinuous, albeit inaccurate, fire from the surrounding Cacos through- out the night. The horse carrying the patrol’s machinegun had been killed in the ambush and GySgt Daly volunteered to retrieve the weapon. Crawling through Caco lines, he returned to the site of the ambush and, under fire, repeatedly dove to the bottom of the stream until he located the dead animal. Stripping the gun from its back, Daly then executedaharrowing return to the Marine lines. At dawn, with Capt William P. Upshur, Ist Lt Edward A. Ostermann, and GySgt Daly, each in command of a squad, the Marines attacked outward in three different directions, scattering the Cacos. Three years later Daly was in France serving as First Sergeant, 73rd Company, 6th Regiment. On June i, 1918, the regiment, as part of the 4th Marine Brigade which was itself half of the 2ndU.S. Di- vision, was placed in the line athwart the Paris-Metz road. The move was designed to plug the gap left by the shattered French 43rd Division and to halt the headlong German advance on Paris. The Ma- rines did not have to wait long. The next day the crack German 28th Division hit the Marines’ center but recoiled from the deadly Spring- field fire. After repeated attacks the Germans fell back and, on the 5th, consolidated their position in the Bois de Belleau. That day, German artillery fire hit aMarine ammunition dump on the out- skirts of Lucy-le-Bocage, a town adjacent to the wood. As ammuni- tion boxes began burning, ist Sgt Daly unhesitatingly entered the dump and extinguished the blaze. The next day, operating under orders from Gen Jean Degoutte com- manding the French Sixth Army, the Marines went after the Germans in the wood. As they advanced across open wheat fields, German Max- ims cut them down, but they continued and reached the woods in the afternoon. It was on this hellish day that istSgt Daly, seeing a leaderless platoon pinned down by machinegun fire, is reputed to have roared: "Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" On the 10th of June in the fighting around Bouresches, across Belleau Wood from Lucy-le-Bocage, Daly engaged a German machinegun post singlehandedly. With a few hand grenades and a .45, Daly at- tacked and literally blew the position apart. For this act and for his heroism in the blazing ammunition dump, he was awarded not only a Distinguished Service Cross by the Army but also a Navy Cross. Daly was wounded soon afterward and evacuated under protest to a hospital. As soon as possible he returned to his unit but was wounded once again. He was placed on inactive status in July 1920, retired in 1929, and died in 1937. The Navy dedicated a destroyer to him in 1942 and his name went to war once again. Dan Daly was truelyalegendinhis own time. John Lejeune called him "...the outstanding Marine of all time," while Smedley Butler said he was "the fightinest Marine I ever knew...it was an object lesson to have served with him." That legend’s medals are on dis- play at the Marine Corps Historical Center. 26 IDENTIFICATIONS REQUESTED: BY: DOUGLAS S, AYKROYD 81-3-6 - This is the Hessian Or- der of Philip the Good. It is 60 X 60 mm., with white enameled arms. The motto is in gold letters on white enamel. The bust of gold is in low re- lief on a blue enamel background. All metal on the front is either gold or silver gilt. The entire badge is mounted with rivets to a silver backing with a pin. The question here is: What de- gree does this represent? 81-3-7 - This medal appears to be a Soviet Marksmanship Badge of some soft. The rectangle is red enamel and the main badge is a white enamel target with a black center. On the right is a red enameled flag. On the left is a green enameled wreath. The star above the target is of red enamel. All the metal is silver IDENTIFICATION REQUESTED: BY: GORDON A, BRANDON 81-3-8 - Bronze medal, 32mm, about imm thickness. Light blue rib- bon 38mm. 27 .