Michael John O'Leary

Michael John O'Leary VC (29 September 1890 – 1 August 1961) was an Irish soldier and police officer whose extraordinary conduct at Cuinchy in February 1915 earned him the Victoria Cross. Serving with the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, O'Leary advanced ahead of an attacking party and overcame two German barricades, killing eight defenders and taking two prisoners in an action that effectively opened the position for the troops behind him.

Born at Kilbarry Lodge, Inchigeelagh, near Macroom, County Cork, O'Leary was the son of Daniel O'Leary and Margaret O'Leary, née Lucey, and was educated at Kilbarry National School. Before joining the Army he served briefly in the Royal Navy as a stoker at the Devonport shore establishment HMS Vivid. He was medically discharged on 29 April 1910 because of rheumatism in his knees. The precise date on which he entered the Royal Navy varies between surviving secondary accounts, so it is preferable not to give an enlistment year without confirmation from his naval service record.

O'Leary enlisted in the British Army on 2 July 1910 and joined the Irish Guards as No. 3556. After three years of home service he passed to the Army Reserve in July 1913 and emigrated to Canada. On 2 August 1913 he joined the Royal North-West Mounted Police as Constable No. 5685 and was posted to Battleford, Saskatchewan. During his police service he took part in a prolonged armed pursuit that ended with the capture of two wanted men. After the outbreak of the First World War he received a free discharge from the police on 22 September 1914 and returned to his British Army commitment. He was mobilised in October and joined the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards on the Western Front in late November 1914.

O'Leary was appointed Lance-Corporal in January 1915. On 1 February, during fighting near Cuinchy on the La Bassée Canal, he formed part of a storming party sent against German positions on the railway embankment. Moving ahead of the attacking troops, he killed the five defenders of the first barricade, then continued approximately sixty yards to a second position, where he killed three more German soldiers and captured two. His actions prevented the remainder of the assaulting force from being swept by fire from the enemy positions. He was promoted Sergeant shortly afterwards and recommended for the Victoria Cross.

His award appeared in the Fourth Supplement to The London Gazette. The parent Gazette issue is dated 16 February 1915, while the supplement containing O'Leary's citation is dated 18 February 1915. The official notice identified him as “No. 3556 Lance-Corporal Michael O'Leary, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards” and stated that he had “practically captured the enemy's position by himself.” O'Leary received the Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace on 22 June 1915 and became one of the best-known Irish soldiers of the war.

Later in 1915 he received the Russian Cross of St George, 3rd Class. On 23 October 1915, Sergeant Michael O'Leary VC was commissioned from the Irish Guards into the Connaught Rangers, a transfer confirmed in the London Gazette. He subsequently served in the Salonika and Middle Eastern theatres and suffered repeated attacks of malaria. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1917 and eventually returned to Britain, serving with the Connaught Rangers at Dover. In June 1920 he was transferred to the Reserve of Officers.

O'Leary married Margaret “Greta” Hegarty in 1919. He returned to Canada in March 1921, where his civilian occupations included work for a publishing company, service with the Ontario Provincial Police, and employment as a detective sergeant with the Michigan Central Railway Police. After periods of unemployment and declining health, his family returned to Ireland. O'Leary followed them in 1929, later moving to London. He worked at the British Legion poppy factory and subsequently became a commissionaire at the May Fair Hotel.

O'Leary returned to Army service during the Second World War. VictoriaCrossOnline records him as a lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment and camp commandant at Headquarters, III Corps, with which he went to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. He was invalided home before Dunkirk on medical grounds. Although one detailed account attributes this evacuation to diabetes and other secondary accounts attribute it to malaria, the diagnosis should remain unstated until confirmed from his wartime medical or personnel record. He transferred to the Pioneer Corps in 1941 and subsequently served on the staffs of prisoner-of-war camps in southern England.

The official record of his final Army status is particularly important. On 19 March 1945, Lieutenant M. O'Leary VC, service number 46831, relinquished his commission in the Pioneer Corps because of disability and was granted the honorary rank of Captain. Some later secondary accounts describe him as holding the rank of Major while associated with a prisoner-of-war camp, but a primary record establishing that rank has not yet been located. For a publication intended to meet archival standards, his verified final rank should therefore be treated as honorary Captain unless evidence of a temporary or local majority is produced.

After leaving military service O'Leary worked in the building trade until retiring in 1954. He died in London on 1 August 1961 and was buried at Mill Hill Cemetery. His medal group, including the Victoria Cross, 1914–15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal with Mention in Despatches emblem, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939–45, the 1937 and 1953 Coronation Medals, and the Russian Cross of St George, 3rd Class, was subsequently associated with the Irish Guards and is held at Wellington Barracks.