The story of Colonel Harry "Paddy" Flint, one of the most colorful, fascinating, unique, and impactful characters of the 20th century who you never heard of. I'll keep this brief as I could go on for hours.
Paddy graduated West Point shortly before Patton, Eisenhower, and several other big names of WWII. He was a kind, well-educated man whose goal in life as to die in combat.
When Patton was going up against Mexican fighters, Paddy thought it would be his opportunity to die. He never had that opportunity.
When the First World War broke out, Paddh thought for certain that he would die in combat. He did not see combat during the war and was kept stateside where he proved himself to be a hero by saving the day a couple times by putting his life on the line.
In the interwar period, Paddy felt that his opportunity to die in combat was gone. Then WWII broke out. Paddy was old at this time, in his fifties. A new rule stated thst men over the age of 45 may not command a combat outfit. Paddy was sent to Africa in a non-combat position. He was quite upset about this.
Paddy reached out to his old pal General Omar Bradley and asked that the rules be bent for him. Bradley approved Paddy's request and put him in command of the 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th ID, a combat outfit who fought through North Africa and arrived in Sicily with low morale.
The first thing Paddy did was to paint "-A-A-A-O-" on his helmet, which stood for (there are a few variations on this) "Anyone, anytime, anywhere, bar none". By the next day, the entire regiment had painted this on their helmets and had an immediate boost in morale under Paddy Flint's command.
He was a great leader and there are plenty of examples. I will spare you for now.
After the victory in Sicily, the 39th was sent to England for invasion training. Once again Paddy felt he missed his opportunity to die in combat.
In June 1944, the 9th ID was instrumental in securing Cherbourg from the Germans. Paddy Flint was able to get much of the German high command to surrender to him at one time. He received intel that the high command was operating out of a cave. He quickly fought through Cherbourg with his men, arrived at the cave, fired a couple artillery shots into the opening, and then got the surrender he came for.
The remainder of the Normandy campaign is where things really got crazy. The more Paddy didn't die, the more he tried. General Bradley wrote him a letter that essentially said, "Calm down, paddy, you're going to get yourself killed."
Eventually Paddh wound up dual-wielding rifles (Garand in one hand, carbine I'm the other), running toward retreating Germans screaming at them that they couldn't hit him if they tried. Legend has it that bullets were whizzing through his pants but just missing his legs.
Later in Normandy, he eventually was shot in the back of the head by a sniper. A private approached the colonel and said to him as he lay dying, "You can't kill an Irishman, you can only make him angry" (something Paddy had been known to say). Paddy Flint then died with a smile on his face.
As a side note, Paddy wasn't even Irishm even though he often liked to talk with an Irish brogue. He was quite an interesting fellow. I have been studying the 9th ID since I was a kid and have a huge collection of documents, photographs, memorabilia, etc. relating to the unit. I have in my collection what may be the last photograph ever taken of Paddy.