
Rank
and organization: Captain (then Lieutenant), U.S.
Army, Company A, 15th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place
and date:
Nuremberg,
Germany,
18 April 1945. Entered
service at: Southport,
Conn. Born: 15 September 1924,
New
York, N.Y. G.O. No.:
77, 10
September 1945. Citation: Early in the morning of 18 April 1945,
he led his company through the shell‑battered, sniper‑infested
wreckage of Nuremberg,
Germany. When blistering machinegun fire caught his
unit in an exposed position, he ordered his men to take cover, dashed forward
alone, and, as bullets whined about him, shot the 3‑man guncrew with his
carbine. Continuing the advance at the
head of his company, he located an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers
which threatened friendly armor. He
again went forward alone, secured a vantage point and opened fire on the
Germans. Immediately he became the
target for concentrated machine‑pistol and rocket fire, which blasted the
rubble about him. Calmly, he continued
to shoot at the patrol until he had killed all 6 enemy infantrymen. Continuing boldly far in front of his
company, he entered a park, where as his men advanced, a German machinegun
opened up on them without warning. With his carbine, he killed the gunner; and
then, from a completely exposed position, he directed machinegun fire on the
remainder of the crew until all were dead.
In a final duel, he wiped out a third machinegun emplacement with rifle
fire at a range of 10 yards. By fearlessly engaging in 4 singlehanded fire fights
with a desperate, powerfully armed enemy, Lt. Daly, voluntarily taking all
major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity, killed 15
Germans, silenced 3 enemy machineguns and wiped out an entire enemy patrol. His heroism during the lone bitter struggle
with fanatical enemy forces was an inspiration to the valiant Americans who
took Nuremberg.