With two world titles to his title and a high-profile struggle in opposition to Floyd Mayweather below his belt, Conor McGregor is undoubtedly Eire’s most well-known ever MMA fighter, however one other man, extra cruel than McGregor, can declare to be its deadliest.
Dermot ‘Pat’ O’Neill was an unbeatable grappler who mixed strategies from half-a-dozen kinds to tackle infamous Kung Fu specialists, ruthless Asian gangsters, and battle-hardened Nazis in confrontations the place defeat meant demise.
The unique final fighter, he started his exceptional rise to seventh dan in Jiu Jitsu by maintaining legislation and order as a cop within the again alleys of Shanghai, and his profession reads just like the biography for an Irish James Bond: intelligence officer shadowing communist agitators, handpicked member of the primary SWAT staff, hand-to-hand fight teacher for the OSS in WWII, military captain who led his Special Forces squad behind enemy strains, and at last, the person to whom the US Marines, US Air Drive and even the CIA turned to be taught new preventing expertise through the Chilly Conflict.
Born to Francis O’Neill from County Laois, and his spouse Mary (née Moore) from County Offaly, on March 21, 1905, at Newmarket, Cork, police service was at all times probably for Dermot as his father was a District Inspector with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
In 1924, he signed on as a cabin boy on a steamer, leaping ship 12,000 miles later after they arrived in Shanghai the place his oldest brother Frank labored for a financial institution.
Shanghai was divided in each sense, made up of the Chinese language metropolis, the French ‘Concession’, and the Worldwide Settlement, which was a part of China however since 1863 had been run by the British to guard their enterprise pursuits and people of America.
Within the Worldwide Settlement, the British and Irish held a lot of the high positions within the Shanghai Municipal Police’s (SMP) Overseas Department whereas the Japanese labored alongside Germans, Sikhs, Chinese language, and ‘White’ (pro-Tsar) Russians within the 14 stations, battling teams just like the Inexperienced Gang who earned thousands and thousands controlling medicine, prostitution, and arms smuggling, utilizing martial arts, blades, and firearms to guard their rackets.
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O’Neill’s household title and his nationality have been a assist when he answered the SMP’s newspaper advert in 1925. Headquarters had despatched cadets to the RIC for coaching, and lengthy recruited immediately from each that power and the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) so simply six weeks later this teen, who wrote ‘college’ below ‘Earlier Employment’ on his utility, discovered himself on patrol for the primary time, and inevitably in a gunfight.
A era earlier than, a troublesome younger English patrolman named William E. Fairbairn discovered that the bayonet expertise which received him fame within the Royal Marines have been ineffective in opposition to expert Asian gangsters skilled in ‘Kung Fu’. He spent two years coaching in ‘Judo’ with a neighborhood sensei, rising a second dan black belt and introducing his simplified ‘Defendu’ to make sure the SMP may shield themselves.
Dermot, who had been a boxer in his teenagers, rose to sergeant inside two years. By the Thirties he was a Sub Inspector shadowing overseas insurgents for Particular Department, and an skilled in Jiu Jitsu, ultimately finding out below legendary sensei Tatsukuma Ushijima.
Corruption was widespread. Lots of O’Neill’s Chinese language colleagues have been gangsters, swearing oaths to brotherhoods much like the Mafia. SMP Detective Lu Liankui, for instance, turned a key Inexperienced Gang boss.
The Settlement’s Municipal Council turned a blind eye to the deliberate recruitment of such criminals employed to maintain a lid on different gangs, however within the wake of 123 murders and virtually 1,500 armed robberies in 1927 they demanded motion.
Fairbairn’s resolution was to kind the primary SWAT Group, the SMP ‘Reserve Unit’ which might additionally deal with riots, guard VIPs, shield gold shipments, and escort condemned prisoners.
Fairbairn had full religion in O’Neill, and because the highest ranked non-Japanese on the planet in his artwork, a pure selection for the unit’s unarmed fight teacher. When he wasn’t going out on raids, the Irishman skilled the USMC 4th Marine Regiment, the ‘China Marines’, who generally supported the unit on missions.
By 1934, Shanghai had grown to the sixth-largest metropolis on the planet and the celebrity of the modern Fairbairn, who some recommend was a mannequin for Ian Fleming’s’ M’ within the Bond novels, had unfold too, his officers’ tough-guy exploits filling newspapers and even a US comedian ebook.
O’Neill’s fame additionally rose and in 1938 he accepted the job of Head of Safety with the British Legation in Tokyo, the place he earned his fourth dan black belt.
Again in Shanghai, Pat had commonly grappled with Judo college students from the native Tung Wen School, nicely conscious that his opponents have been being skilled as spies at a faculty with shut hyperlinks to Japan’s secret societies, and the dreaded Kempeitai, Tokyo’s model of the Gestapo.
Decided to not be trapped in Tokyo, on October 4, 1941, Pat smuggled himself onto a fishing boat, ultimately reuniting together with his brother Frank in Sydney simply earlier than the assault on Pearl Harbor, the place he was quickly telegrammed by Fairbairn urging him to affix his outdated boss within the USA working for the Workplace for Strategic Providers (OSS).
In Could 1942, the Irishman discovered himself instructing brokers at ‘Camp X’ simply over the border in Ontario, Canada however quickly turned stressed leaping on the probability to work with volunteers drawn from the US and Canadian armies with the ‘First Particular Providers Drive’ (FSSF).
The FSSF’s inspirational CO Lt. Colonel Robert Frederick, a serious normal in the US Army throughout World Conflict II, initially requested OSS head William ‘Wild Invoice’ Donovan if he may borrow this worthwhile civilian for 2 months, and instructed Pat that he had 40 hours per consumption to coach not solely the officers however 1,800 who enlisted in unarmed fight, knife preventing and SMP-style pistol taking pictures.
“I’m not right here to show you how one can harm,” the brand new teacher would curtly snap throughout the parade floor at their base in Fort William Henry Harrison close to Helena, Montana. “I am right here to show you how one can kill!”
Pat quickly realized he would wish a system nearly as good as Defendu, however extra direct, soiled and evasive.
“The purpose of hand-to-hand fight,” he later instructed USMC Brass, “is to make each man a harmful man, armed or unarmed”.
His trademark ‘O’Neill to the nuts’ of a Nazi sentry would guarantee he would by no means father a son and he additionally mixed brutal eye gouges, lethal punches to the throat and cruel stomps to kind ‘The O’Neill Methodology of Shut Fight’.
On June 19, 1943, although nonetheless not an American citizen, he accepted the Colonel’s supply of a commission-in-the-field with the rank of US Army Captain.
“They ‘Shanghai-ed’ me,” the brand new captain chuckled.
O’Neill took half in all points of the brigade’s grueling coaching, so decided to not be overlooked of the motion he persuaded his CO to have him assigned as an Intelligence Officer and Frederick’s bodyguard earlier than they shipped out in November 1943.
Initially destined for commando missions behind German strains in Norway, the FSSF ended up preventing the Nazis first in Italy, the place they performed a key function in essential battles, wonderful Basic Eisenhower after they scaled hovering peaks on the very important Monte la Difensa regardless of stiff resistance from battle-hardened Panzergrenadiers, and later dealing with an equally powerful enemy at Monte Cassino.
O’Neill turned Uncle Sam’s latest nephew at an Italian farmhouse a number of hours earlier than St Patrick’s Day 1944 when he was awarded his US citizenship. He would quickly personally lead closely armed mild infantry squads behind German strains at Anzio when with faces blackened evening after evening they silently killed sentries and stole paperwork and maps which Pat would vet earlier than passing again to US Fifth Army Intelligence.
His ‘Braves,’ as they known as themselves, used psychological warfare too, planting playing cards with their USA-Canada pink arrow patch and Das dicke ende kommt nocht (‘The worst is but to return’) on corpses.
With their fight energy dropping to 500 males, the FSSF’s finish quickly got here, and although they by no means failed in a mission, after preventing within the Liberation of France, the proud ‘Satan’s Brigade’ was formally disbanded close to the city of Menton, near Good, on December 5, 1944, their success making them a mannequin for future particular models just like the Navy SEALs, Delta Drive, and the Inexperienced Berets.
O’Neill turned Provost Marshall of Monte Carlo earlier than working with Basic MacArthur as Liaison Officer in Okinawa, retiring with a Bronze Star and the rank of Main, when at all times eager to be taught, he took in deadly Okinawan Karate, and studied Aikido.
The Irishman was not so lucky in his private life. He had married a neighborhood schoolteacher named Mary Frances Hardigan in 1943 however their union, which produced one daughter, Barbara, didn’t survive the instant postwar interval.
Now a fifth dan he spent a lot of the 50s in Japan serving to the State Division monitor communist insurgents, even touring to Vietnam lengthy earlier than the US turned formally embroiled there.
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Pat acquired to see his beloved Eire one final time within the Nineteen Seventies earlier than life did what few opponents ever may, laying the now-seventh-dan black belt flat on his again after a fall in his house in DC from which he by no means totally recovered.
Main Dermot O’Neill succumbed to pneumonia on August 11, 1985, and his cremated stays have been buried within the navy part of Arlington Cemetery on December 5, 41 years to the day after the FSSF was disbanded.
Regardless of all his success, O’Neill by no means noticed himself as a soldier or an early MMA fighter within the samurai spirit.
He remained, like his father, an Irish cop, completely satisfied to depart the cash and fame to others.
It was merely as an old school ‘intelligence man’ that maybe the best Irish fighter of all of them hoped to be remembered.
*Initially printed December 2015. Up to date in August 2022.
