We are searching data for your request:
Upon completion, a link will appear to access the found materials.
Op 26 Januarie 1945 sit Audie Murphy en ongeveer 40 Amerikaanse troepe sidderend in 'n yskoue, sneeubedekte opruiming naby die Elsassiese stad Holtzwihr. Die strydmoeide soldate is beveel om 'n lewensbelangrike pad te hou totdat versterkings opgedaag het, maar die operasie is vertraag en die beloofde verligting is nêrens te sien nie. Net na 14:00 is die winterstilte skielik verbreek deur die donderklap van 'n vyandelike artillerieversperring. In die verte kom ongeveer 250 Duitse troepe en ses tenks uit die bos.
Toe hy kyk hoe die Duitsers opstaan vir 'n aanval, voel Murphy 'n golf van paniek in sy buik. Dit was 'n bekende gevoel wat hy geleer het om te beheer tydens 18 maande van bitter gevegte in Italië en Frankryk. Op 19-jarige ouderdom het die Texan met 'n baba reeds twee Silver Stars en die Distinguished Service Cross gewen, en hy het mans 10 jaar ouer as 'n geveg gelei. Toe die skietery begin het, het hy geweet sy instinkte sou oorneem. 'Die senuwees sal ontspan', het hy later geskryf, 'die hart, hou op met die stamp. Die brein gaan oor na slinkse diere. Die taak lê direk voor ons: vernietig en oorleef. ”
Murphy het geweet dat sy manne geen kans het teen so 'n groot mag nie, en daarom het hy die meeste van hulle opdrag gegee om terug te trek na vooraf voorbereide verdedigingsposisies langs 'n nabygeleë boomlyn. Terwyl hulle dekking soek, het hy agtergebly en met sy veldtelefoon 'n artilleriestaking ingeroep. Hy het net genoeg tyd gehad om in sy koördinate te radio, voordat daar slae van Duitse tenkvuur om hom uitgebars het. Een dop het onmiddellik 'n boom naby 'n masjiengeweerboord geboor en sy bemanning met dodelike splinters hout oorstroom; 'n ander een het 'n tenksvernietiger in die omgewing getref en dit aan die brand gesteek.
Murphy se bevelpos stort voor sy oë in duie, maar hy hou vas en hou aan om die Geallieerde artillerie in te roep. Binne 'n paar sekondes reën 'n gordyn van vriendelike vuur tussen hom en die opkomende Duitse infanterie neer, wat die oop veld met kraters neerslaan en alles in 'n waas van rook omhul. Nadat hy sy M-1-karabyn by die vyand leeggemaak het, het Murphy sy veldtelefoon gegryp en bo die brandende tenkvernietiger dekking geneem. Oor die radio kon hy die artilleriebevelvoerder hoor vra hoe naby die Duitsers aan sy posisie was. "Hou net die telefoon vas, en ek laat jou met een van die bastards praat!" skree hy terug.
Die tenkvernietiger word stadigaan in vlamme verswelg, maar Murphy het gesien dat die masjiengeweertoring van 0,50 kaliber nog steeds in werking is. Hy gryp vinnig die geweer en spuit 'n verdorde vuur teen die Duitse troepe naaste aan sy posisie. 'My verdoofde brein is slegs daarop gemik om te vernietig,' het Murphy later in sy outobiografie geskryf. 'Ek weet net dat die rook en die rewolwer 'n goeie skerm bied, en dat my voete vir die eerste keer in drie dae warm is.' Hy het voortgegaan met skiet na bars, terwyl hy Nazi -troepe by die dosyn afgemaai het en die tenks weggehou het. Die hele tyd bly hy aan die telefoon en rig artillerievuur steeds nader aan sy eie posisie en berokken katastrofiese skade aan die opkomende infanterie.
Van hul dekking op die rand van die boomlyn kon die meeste van Murphy se troepe net geskok kyk. 'Ek het verwag dat ek die hele tenkvernietiger elke minuut onder hom sou opblaas', het privaat Anthony Abramski later geskryf. Trouens, die brand het Murphy se lewe gered. Baie van die Duitse troepe en tenkbevelvoerders kon hom nie agter die sluier van rook en vlamme sien nie, en diegene wat dit wel weerstaan het, kom te naby uit vrees dat die voertuig op die punt staan om te ontplof.
Ondanks die hael van die geallieerde artillerie -skulpe, het vars golwe van Duitse infanteriste voortgegaan na Murphy se posisie. Een span het probeer om 'n flankerende maneuver aan sy regterkant te maak, net om in 'n hael met 'n vuurwapen van sy geweer van 50 kaliber afgesny te word. Terwyl Murphy sy eenman-aanval voortgesit het, het Duitse kanonniers sy smeulende tenkvernietiger met handwapens en tenkvuur deurdrenk. Een ontploffing het hom byna uit die voertuig geslinger en 'n vlymskerp granaat in sy been gestuur, maar hy het geen rekening gehou met die wond nie en het aangehou veg. Dit was eers toe Murphy opraak met ammunisie dat hy uiteindelik onttrek het. Verdwaas en bebloed spring hy uit die brandende tenkvernietiger en hink na sy manne. Hy het later geskryf dat terwyl hy wegstap, veral 'n gedagte deur sy gedagtes bly jaag: "Hoekom is ek nie dood nie?"
Die mans van Murphy wonder ongetwyfeld dieselfde. Dit was die 'grootste bewys van moed en moed wat ek nog ooit gesien het', het 'n verstomde Abramski later geskryf. '' N Uur lank het hy die vyandelike mag alleen gehou en teen onmoontlike kans geveg. Murphy het ongeveer 50 vyandelike troepe persoonlik doodgemaak of gewond en artillerie teen tientalle meer gerig. Selfs nadat hy die veiligheid bereik het, het hy geweier om uit die veld ontruim te word en in plaas daarvan sy manne bymekaargemaak in 'n teenaanval wat die Duitsers in die bos teruggedryf het.
Audie Murphy word as 'n nasionale held aangewys en die Medal of Honor toegeken vir sy kakebeenkloue by Holtzwihr. Omdat hy nie die lewe van sy nuutste beroemde soldaat wou waag nie, het die weermag hom as skakelbeampte aangewys en sy bes gedoen om hom uit die stryd te hou totdat die oorlog geëindig het. Teen daardie tyd het die gevegsverharde G.I. het drie wonde opgedoen, 'n nare geval van malaria, gangreen en meer dooie vriende as wat hy wou onthou. 'Daar is VE-dag sonder', het hy geskryf oor sy gemengde gevoelens aan die einde van die oorlog, 'maar geen vrede binne nie.'
Murphy keer in Junie 1945 huis toe vir 'n held se verwelkoming van parades, gewemel van verslaggewers en sy gesig op die voorblad van Life Magazine. Op advies van die skermlegende James Cagney het hy later sy seunsagtige voorkoms na Hollywood geneem, waar hy 'n filmloopbaan gesmee het wat meer as 40 krediete insluit, die meeste in Westerse en oorlogsfilms. Sy bekendste rol kom in 1955, toe hy homself speel in "To Hell and Back", 'n blockbuster -verwerking van sy eie memoires oor die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Dit was moeilik vir Murphy, wat sedert die terugkeer huis toe aan nagmerries en terugflitse gely het, die gruwels van die geveg voor die kamera te herleef. Hy het later in die openbaar gepraat oor sy dekades lange stryd met post-traumatiese stresversteuring, en het die Amerikaanse regering aangemoedig om beter geestesgesondheid vir sy veterane te bied.
"To Hell and Back" was 'n groot treffer - die film was die mees winsgewende weergawe van Universal Studios tot "Jaws" in 1975 - en dit het gehelp om Murphy se reputasie as een van die beroemdste Amerikaanse veterane van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog te versegel. Maar ondanks die feit dat hy etlike dosyne medaljes vir dapperheid verower het, het hy altyd verset teen pogings om hom 'n held te noem. 'Dapperheid is net vasberadenheid om 'n werk te verrig wat u weet moet gedoen word', het hy aan verslaggewers gesê toe hulle in 1945 teruggekeer het. '
'N Groot dame het geslaag en Pamela Murphy
Eis: Account beskryf die pogings van Pamela Murphy namens pasiënte by 'n veteraan
Administrasie hospitaal.
Voorbeeld: [Versamel per e-pos, Julie 2010]
Enige soldaat of marinier wat in die hospitaal gekom het, het dieselfde spesiale behandeling van haar ontvang. Sy sal met haar klembord in die gange loop en seker maak dat haar seuns die spesialis wat hulle nodig het, moet sien.
As hulle dit nie gedoen het nie, let op. Haar seuns was nie Medal of Honor -ontvangers of filmsterre soos Audie nie, maar dit het Pam nie saak gemaak nie. Hulle het hul land gedien. Dit was goed genoeg vir haar. Sy het nooit 'n veteraan op sy voornaam gebel nie. Dit was altyd 'Meneer'. Respek het gepaard gegaan met die werk.
'Niemand kon die rompslomp vinniger afsny as die veteraan Stephen Sherman nie, en het gepraat oor duisende veterane met wie sy deur die jare bevriend was. 'Ek het baie keer gesien hoe sy 'n veteraan marsjeer wat meer as 'n uur lank in die dokter se kantoor gewag het. Sy is selfs 'n paar keer berispe, maar dit het nie saak gemaak nie: 'Net haar seuns het saak gemaak. Sy was ons engel. ”
Oorsprong: Audie Murphy was Amerika se mees versierde wêreldveteraan, wat die Medal of Honor ontvang het (die Amerikaanse weermag se hoogste toekenning vir dapperheid), asook 'n ander en aanhalings uit die VSA, Frankryk en België. Murphy se na-oorlogse lewe het 'n suksesvolle loopbaan as akteur ingesluit wat in meer as veertig films (insluitend Na die hel en terug, 'n filmweergawe van sy Wêreld -outobiografie waarin Murphy homself gespeel het).
In 1971 sterf Audie Murphy op 45 -jarige ouderdom in 'n vliegtuigongeluk en laat sy vrou van Pamela agter. (Alhoewel die egpaar in die vroeë 1960's geskei is, het hulle getroud gebly tot met Murphy se dood.) Om haarself te onderhou na haar man se dood, het Pamela Murphy 'n werk in die Sepulveda Veterans Administration (VA) -hospitaal in die California Valley geneem en die volgende deurgebring werk by die fasiliteit, waar sy alombekend was en geprys is vir die omgee en sorg wat sy getoon het teenoor die veterane wat daar behandeling gesoek het.
Pamela Murphy is op 90 -jarige ouderdom oorlede om Dennis McCarthy van die Daaglikse nuus om die rubriek oor haar waarna hierbo verwys is, neer te skryf, om Pumela Murphy postuum 'n mate van publisiteitsherkenning te gee wat sy altyd in die lewe minag het.
Kritieke massa: Beskeie Audie Murphy 'n ware Amerikaanse held
Audie Murphy (links) en John Dierks speel in John Huston se film The Red Badge of Courage uit 1951. Audie Murphy was 'n klein man, 'n aanraking van meer as 5 voet, 5 sentimeter lank. Hy kom uit 'n Texas sharecropper -familie nadat sy ma in 1936 siek geword het, en sy pa - wat 'nie lui was nie, maar 'n genie gehad het om nie die toekoms in ag te neem' - het haar en sy 11 kinders in die steek gelaat. Audie het 'n broodwinner geword. Hy het katoen gekies en in 'n winkel gewerk en konyne geskiet om te gaan met die melasse en brood wat hulle geëet het. Sy ma, Josie, is in Mei 1941, toe hy 15 jaar oud was, oorlede.
'Ek kan my nooit onthou dat ek jonk was in my lewe nie,' het hy later gesê.
Hy was 16 toe hy die eerste keer by die Marines probeer inskryf het, onmiddellik nadat die Japannese Pearl Harbor aangeval het. Hy is geweier omdat hy ondergewig en minderjarig was.
Hy het sy suster 'n vals beëdigde verklaring laat sweer dat hy 'n jaar ouer was as hy, en het 'n eetbrokkie geëet wat sy gewig tot 112 pond verhoog het. Die weermag het hom uiteindelik in Junie 1942 geneem, en tydens basiese opleiding presteer hy as 'n skieter, maar hy flou tydens 'n oefenoefening in die warm Texas -son.
Sy bevelvoerder van die geselskap het gedink dat hy te effens gebou was vir gevegte, en het probeer om hom na die kook- en bakkerskool te laat gaan. Maar volgens sy spookgeskrewe outobiografie wou Murphy altyd 'n soldaat wees.
Hulle het hom in 1943, toe hy 18 was, oorsee gestuur. Teen die einde van die oorlog word gesê dat hy 241 vyandelike soldate doodgemaak het. As 'n privaat persoon, word hy vinnig bevorder tot korporaal en sersant, en uiteindelik ontvang hy 'n seldsame opdrag van die slagveld aan tweede luitenant en pelotonleier.
Op 19 het hy die Medal of Honor gewen omdat hy 'n Duitse tenk- en infanterie -aanval letterlik alleen teruggeslaan het - van die top van 'n gestrande tenkvernietiger afgevuur en artillerievuur op sy eie posisie ingeroep het. (Na bewering toe hy gevra is hoe naby die Duitsers aan sy posisie was, het Murphy gekraak: 'Hou net die telefoon vas, en ek laat u met een van die bastards praat.') Nadat Murphy teruggetrek het, het Murphy die oorblywende afgerond. 19 (uit 'n oorspronklike 128) mans in sy geselskap en het 'n teenaanval gereël.
Hy het 36 ander medaljes ontvang, waaronder die Franse Forrager, Legion of Honor en Croix de Guerre met Palm and Silver Star en die Belgiese Croix de Guerre 1940 met Palm. Die Texas -wetgewer het hom ook 'n erepenning toegeken. Daar word algemeen na hom verwys as die mees versierde soldaat van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog.
Toe hy ná VE-dag in Junie 1945 uit Europa terugkeer, word hy begroet as 'n held, met parades en bankette. Life het hom op die voorblad van sy uitgawe van 16 Julie 1945 geplaas. Dit blyk dat Audie Murphy 'n aantreklike kind was, wat altyd beskryf word as 'baba-gesig' of 'seunsagtig'. James Cagney sien die foto, bel Murphy en nooi hom uit na Hollywood.
Murphy het, ietwat huiwerig, pynlik bewus daarvan dat hy geen talent of affiniteit vir die werk gehad het nie, maar dat hy net so lank kon lewe van toesprake na die ete en sy $ 113 per maand se weermagpensioen. Toe Cagney hom persoonlik ontmoet, was hy verstom dat die oorlogsheld 'baie dun' was met 'n 'blougrys gelaatskleur'.
Cagney het die hotelkamer wat hy vir Murphy bespreek het, gekanselleer en hom in sy eie huis geneem. Cagney en sy broer William het Murphy as kontrakspeler van $ 150 per week vir hul produksiemaatskappy onderteken en hom met toneelspel-, stem- en judolesse opgestel.
Maar hulle het hom nooit in 'n film vertolk nie, en in 1947 het hy in 'n kamer by Terry Hunt's Athletic Club in Hollywood ingetrek, waar hy die draaiboekskrywer David "Spec" McClure ontmoet het, wat tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog in die Signal Corps van die Amerikaanse weermag gedien het. McClure het Murphy aangemoedig om 'n boekooreenkoms te soek, en spoedig onderteken hy met Henry Holt en Co om sy memoir te skryf, met McClure as spookskrywer.
McClure het Murphy ook sy eerste skermrol as 'n koerantkopie in 'Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven' gekry. ('N Net so klein deel, in die Alan Ladd -funksie "Beyond Glory", is vroeër verfilm, maar is later vrygelaat. Murphy se vriendin en later vrou, Wanda Hendrix, het hom gehelp om die rol te verseker.)
Terwyl Murphy steeds in groter B -rolprente in B -foto's opgetree het, het hy en McClure die beloofde memoires begin skryf. Hulle vlieg na Europa om Murphy se treë deur Sicilië te volg, en Salerno, Anzio, Suid -Frankryk en Suid -Duitsland om die slagvelde te besoek waar hy sy medaljes verower het.
Die proses was moeisaam Murphy was waarskynlik 'n natuurlike introvert en kom terug uit die oorlog met wat ons nou sou erken as 'n klassieke geval van post-traumatiese stres sindroom. (Hy het gesukkel met slapeloosheid, aanvalle van depressie en nagmerries wat verband hou met talle gevegte gedurende sy hele lewe. Hendrix was bekommerd dat hy by 'n gevange Walther onder sy kussing geslaap het en beweer dat hy dit een keer aan haar getrek het nadat sy hom geskrik het. Hulle skei in 1951 .)
Alhoewel hy 'n paar gedeeltes langsaam geskryf het, het hy waarskynlik minder as 10% van die boek geskryf. Vir die res het McClure op sy feite staatgemaak op Murphy se medalje -aanhalings en Donald Taggart se klassieke "History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II". Dan sou hy 'n onderhoud met die stilswyende Murphy voer oor sy ervarings, tik wat hy gedink het gebeur het en stuur sy eksemplaar aan Murphy.
Murphy verwerp McClure se eerste en tweede poging om Murphy se herinneringe weer te gee. Die skrywer sou gefrustreerd raak met sy medewerker en eis dat Murphy hom presies vertel wat gebeur het. Soms sou die gebroke jong man presies dit doen.
Na 'n jaar het hulle 'n merkwaardige boek gehad, algemeen bekend as 'To Hell and Back'. Maar as u na die stofomslag van die eerste uitgawe kyk, sal u agterkom dat die boek eintlik die titel "Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back" het, wat 'n sekere onduidelikheid van outeurskap blyk te wees. Dit is nie presies 'deur' Murphy nie, en McClure se naam verskyn nêrens in die uitgawe nie.
En terwyl dit in die eerste persoon vertel word, lyk dit of Murphy dikwels van die toneel af terugtrek en dit aan sy medesoldate oorgee. In een geval word 'n liedjie wat Murphy geskryf het (hy later 'n mate van sukses as liedjieskrywer sou behaal) toegeskryf aan 'n ander soldaat.
Dit begin op Sicilië, met Murphy wat teleurgesteld voel dat sy geselskap weens die skeduleringsprobleme iewers na die aanvanklike aanval aan wal gekom het en slegs weerstand van Italiaanse troepe ontmoet het:
Daar was groot dinge wat besig was om te breek, en van verskillende punte af kom die ratel van handwapens. Maar ons het gou daaraan gewoond geraak.
Maar dit neem nie lank voordat die afgryse begin nie. Die eerste dood van een van Murphy se medesoldate, verskyn op bladsy twee:
Die tweede dop is anders. Iets vreesliks en onmiddellik aan die fluitjie laat my kopvel prikkel. Ek gryp my helm en draai om op my maag. Die ontploffing is donderend. Staalfragmente tjank, en dit lyk asof die grond opspring en my in die gesig slaan.
Weer stilte. Ek lig my kop op. Die suur dampe van poeier het 'n epidemie van hoes veroorsaak.
Die stem klap. Ons sien dit almal. Die rooikop -soldaat het uit die rots getuimel. Bloed vloei uit sy mond en neus.
Dit neem nog agt bladsye voordat Murphy sy eerste moord opteken:
. Ek loop die geselskap voor met 'n groep verkenners. Ons spoel 'n paar Italiaanse offisiere. Hulle moes oorgegee het. In plaas daarvan klim hulle twee pragtige wit perde en galop mal weg. My daad is instinktief. Ek val twee keer op die een knie. Die mans tuimel van die perde af, rol om en lê stil.
Dit is moeilik om te weet wie vir die boek se statige kadens en saaklike toon toegeskryf moet word. Die nederigheid is waarskynlik Murphy's - nêrens in die memoir word sy medaljes genoem nie, en hoewel die boek vol bloedbad en dapperheid is, lyk dit ongewoon op die alledaagse daaglikse angs van die lewe in 'n gevegsgebied.
Afgesien van die gerekonstrueerde gesprekke tussen die soldate, wat soms stil en breed lyk ('n probleem wat nie gehelp word deur die poging om streeksaksente te herhaal nie), lui die boek met die gesag van 'n huiwerige ooggetuie.
Dit is 'n rukkie sedert ek die Norman Mailer -roman "The Naked and the Dead" van Norman Mailer in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gelees het, maar "To Hell and Back" voel meer direk en op een of ander manier eerliker, alhoewel dit deur McClure se Hollywood -gevoeligheid net so gefiltreer is as "The Naked and die dooies "word gefiltreer deur Mailer se skrywende aspirasies.
Daar is soms poësie in die Murphy/McClure -samewerking, soos wanneer hy 'n kinderdroom vertel:
. Ek was op 'n verre slagveld, waar goggas geblaas het, baniere gestroom het en mans galant oor vlammende heuwels gelaai het waar die temperatuur altyd op tagtig was en ons kant altyd oorwinnend was waar die sterwendes maar onpersoonlike skaduwees was en die gewondes nooit gehuil het nie.
'To Hell and Back' is minder as 300 bladsye lank en maklik om te lees. Baie makliker as "The Naked and the Dead." Maar dit word nooit genoem as een van die beste boeke uit die Tweede Wêreldoorlog nie, waarskynlik omdat dit deur die filmweergawe van 1955 verduister is, waarin Murphy as homself gespeel het.
Murphy het ondanks sy selfveragtende beoordeling van sy eie toneelspelvermoë alles goed gedoen as akteur, veral in 1951 se "The Red Badge of Courage" en westerse rolle soos "Destry" uit 1954 en "Duel at Silver Creek" uit 1952 deur Don Siegel. Tog was hy huiwerig om as homself te speel, deels omdat hy bang was dat hy sy oorlogservaring sou verdien.
Hy sou ook tereg bang gewees het dat sy verhaal gehollywoodiseer word, veral nadat McClure die kans verloor het om die boek vir die skerm aan te pas by die reisiger Gil Doud, wat beter bekend was vir sy werk in die radio. Terwyl Doud met Murphy op dieselfde manier as McClure gewerk het, lyk die film, ten minste vir die moderne gehoor, as 'n standaard oorlogsfilm, hoewel dit ietwat donkerder is as die meeste oorlogsfilms van die tydperk: Murphy is uiteindelik die enigste lid van sy oorspronklike eenheid oor.
Nadat die fliek uitgekom het, het Murphy 'n onderhoud gegee waarin hy nadink oor die 'vreemde ruk heen en weer tussen denkbeeldigheid en werklikheid' wat die verfilming by hom opwek, tussen stryd om jou lewe en die ontdekking dat dit net 'n speletjie is en jy moet 'n heropname doen, want 'n toeris se hond het te midde van die geveg oor die veld gehardloop. "
Hy het 'n voorval vertel waarin hy die dood van een van sy goeie vriende in 'n geveg herhaal het. In die regte lewe het sy vriend te lank opgestaan toe hulle teen 'n heuwel opgestyg het en deur 'n botsing van vyandige masjiengeweer getref is. Hy val terug in Murphy se arms, gee 'n dun glimlag en sê "ek het gek, Murphy" toe hy dood is.
"Toe ons die toneel skiet," onthou Murphy, "het ons die deel verander waar Brandon in my arms gesterf het. Dit was die manier waarop dit werklik gebeur het, maar dit lyk te kronkelrig, het hulle gesê. Ek vermoed dit het gebeur."
Waarskynlik as gevolg van die nuwigheid van 'n oorlogsheld wat homself op die skerm vertoon, was kontemporêre resensies byna eenvormig positief. "Geloofwaardigheid brand in sy sagte gesig en sagte gebare terwyl hy vlugtig deur strydtonele beweeg, soos 'n man wat hulle met verwondering en iets met eerbied herleef," het die tydskrif Time geskryf.
'N Beter oordeel sou John McCarten van The New Yorker gegee het, wat geskryf het: "Ek word meegedeel dat hy 'n beskeie man is, en hy tree hier beskeie op. Maar die gebeure wat in die prentjie beskryf word, het 'n feitelike gevoel. die spontaniteit van werklike heldhaftigheid kan net nie in die films gedupliseer word nie. "
Die film eindig met Murphy wat die Medal of Honor oorhandig word, met sy gevalle kamerade wat tydens die seremonie deur spookagtige verskynings verteenwoordig word. Ek verkies die laaste bladsy van die boek, waar Murphy, wanneer hy hoor dat die oorlog uiteindelik verby is, homself belowe dat hy 'die soort meisie sal vind van wie ek eens gedroom het. Ek sal leer om met onsiniese oë na die lewe te kyk, geloof, om liefde te ken. Ek sal leer om in vrede te werk soos in oorlog. "
Maar Murphy se verhaal het nie 'n gelukkige einde gehad nie. Hy is weer getroud en het twee kinders, en sy liedjies is opgeneem deur mense soos Dean Martin en Harry Nilsson, maar sy nagmerries het hom tot 'n verslawing aan slaappille gelei. Hy het nooit sy beperkings as akteur oorkom nie, en die B-westerns waarin hy gelyk het, word gou deur TV-reekse aan die een kant geknyp en edeler, meer gewelddadige spaghetti-westerns aan die ander kant. 'N Film wat hy van plan was om saam met McClure te maak, "The Way Back", 'n opvolger van sy oorlogsmemoir, het nooit finansiering gekry nie.
Teen 1960 was Murphy, wat moontlik een van die inspirasies vir Quentin Tarantino se karakter Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) was, 'n westelike speurder op TV in die reeks wat grotendeels vergete was "Whispering Smith".
In 1962 ondervra hy oor sy ervaring na die oorlog: "Oorlog beroof jou geestelik en fisies, dit maak jou leeg. Dinge laat jou nie meer opwind nie. Dit is elke dag 'n stryd om iets interessants te vind."
'N Paar jaar later tree hy op uit toneelspel, ontwikkel 'n dobbelprobleem, belê hy sleg, beland en verklaar bankrotskap in 1968. Hy staan tereg vir poging tot moord - sy verweer was basies dat as hy die man wou doodmaak, sou hy het
dit gedoen. Die jurie skud sy hand nadat hulle hom vrygespreek het.
'N Jaar later, in 1971, was hy dood. 'N Vliegtuig wat hy gehuur het, het neergestort terwyl hy onderweg was om 'n moontlike beleggingsgeleentheid in 'n fabriek te sien wat vooraf vervaardigde huise gemaak het. Hy was 45 jaar oud.
As mense in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog aan Amerikaanse soldate dink, onthou baie van hulle John Wayne onmiddellik. Mense stuur vir my kwaai briewe as ek daarop wys dat Wayne, wat 34 jaar oud was die dag toe Pearl Harbor gebombardeer is, nooit 'n dag in die weermag deurgebring het dat hy maatreëls getref het om diens tydens die oorlog te vermy nie.
Hulle dink wenslik dat hul held geheime missies vir die O.S.S. van Wild Bill Donovan uitvoer, of dat hy deur FDR beveel is om films te maak om die moraal vol te hou.
Ek het geen opmerking teen Wayne nie, hy was 'n akteur, nie 'n held nie, en hy het gedoen wat baie, indien nie, die meeste mense in sy situasie sou gedoen het.
Maar ek dink aan Audie Murphy, wat swak gekom het en uit die ooste van Texas verhong het, 'n outentieke held wat vergeet is in hierdie tyd waarin egtheid na bewering soveel beteken. En daardie groot, vergete boek wat hy ooit geskryf het.
Deur Tom Huntington
'N Soekgeselskap het deur dik bosse op die Brush Mountain van Virginia gesukkel. Bo-op die 3,065 voet hoogte ongeveer 12 myl van Roanoke af, het die soekers afgekom op die vliegtuigwrak wat 'n helikopterbemanning vroeër opgemerk het. Hulle het drie lyke in die verminkte romp gevind en drie ander in die verspreide puin. Onder die oorledenes was die 46-jarige Audie Murphy, die mees versierde veteraan in die Amerikaanse geskiedenis.
Murphy, wat na Virginia gevlieg het om 'n beleggingsgeleentheid te besoek, het 21 medaljes in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog verdien, waaronder die Congressional Medal of Honor. Na die oorlog het hy in baie films verskyn, sommige goed, die middelmatigste. Teen die tyd dat die vliegtuig op 23 Mei 1971 neergestort het, was dit asof hy 'n man uit 'n ander tyd was. Nuus oor sy dood het die voorblad van die New York Times gedeel met verslae oor protesoptredes teen die Viëtnamese oorlog.
Murphy is met volle militêre eer op die Arlington National Cemetery begrawe terwyl sy vrou en twee seuns daarna gekyk het. Weermaghoof William Westmoreland het die seremonie bygewoon. President Richard Nixon se Withuis het die verklaring uitgereik dat Murphy "nie net die bewondering van miljoene vir sy eie dapper bedrywighede gewen het nie, hy het ook die dapperheid in die optrede van Amerika se vegtende manne betoon".
Ongelukkig toon Murphy die donker gevolg net so deeglik tot 'dapperheid in aksie', die sielkundige tol wat oorlog selfs die moedigste krygers kan veroorsaak. Alhoewel hy drie keer in die geveg gewond is, was sy diepste letsels nie fisies nie. Hy het aan vreeslike nagmerries gely, geslaap met die ligte aan en 'n geweer onder sy kussing, baie gewaag en niks gevind om hom te interesseer na sy bestaan op die voorste linies nie. 'Dit lyk asof niks my meer opgewonde kan maak nie - weet jy, entoesiasties?' het hy aan regisseur John Huston gesê nadat hy in The Red Badge of Courage gespeel is. 'Voor die oorlog was ek opgewonde en opgewonde oor baie dinge, maar nie meer nie.'
Gebore op 20 Junie 1924, naby die stad Kingston in Texas, was Murphy een van nege kinders wat oorleef het aan ouers wat 'n bestaan uit die land gebring het. 'Ons was deelgewasse-boere,' het hy geskryf. 'En om te sê dat die gesin arm was, sou 'n understatement wees. Armoede het ons elke tree getref. ” Toe Murphy 16 was, het sy pa vertrek. 'Hy het eenvoudig uit ons lewens gegaan en ons het nooit weer van hom gehoor nie,' het Murphy geskryf. Sy ma sterf die volgende jaar, en Murphy neem haar dood swaar. Die gesin moes skei, en Murphy se drie jongste broers en susters is na 'n weeshuis gestuur.
Die koms van die oorlog met die Japannese aanval op Pearl Harbor op 7 Desember 1941, blyk 'n uitweg te wees uit 'n slegte situasie, hoewel Murphy-kort, sproetgesig en gering-'n onwaarskynlike kryger was. Die mariniers wou hom nie vat nie. Die valskermsoldate sou ook nie. Toe hy uiteindelik daarin kon slaag om by die infanterie in te skryf, was hy 18, maar hy het jonger gelyk. Sy sersant in die oefenkamp het hom Baby genoem, en Murphy het flou geval tydens sy eerste oefenoefening. Bevelvoerders het probeer om hom van die geveg te weerhou, wat daarop dui dat hulle hom as 'n klerk of 'n bakker kan laat pos. Maar hy wou baklei.
Die kans kom uiteindelik toe Murphy's Company B van die 15de Regiment, 3de Afdeling, in Italië beland. Hy vermoor sy eerste vyandelike soldate op Sicilië: twee Italiaanse offisiere wat te perd probeer wegjaag het. 'Ek voel geen twyfel nie, geen trots of berou nie,' het hy gesê in To Hell And Back, die outobiografie van 1949 wat hy saam met die joernalis en vriend David McClure geskryf het. 'Daar is slegs 'n moeë onverskilligheid wat my gedurende die oorlog sal volg.' Selfs in hierdie vroeë stadium van sy gevegsloopbaan het hy geleer hoe om sy emosies te onderdruk.
Van Sicilië verhuis Murphy se onderneming na die Italiaanse vasteland. 'N Rits malaria het hom daarvan weerhou om aan die aanvanklike landings by Anzio deel te neem, maar hy het genoeg aksie gesien. Die Duitse weerstand het verstewig ná die landings, en die geallieerde soldate het 'n ellendige dooiepunt verduur. Op 'n nag, terwyl hy onder skoot was, kruip Murphy na 'n beskadigde Duitse tenk en sit dit permanent buite werking. Die aanval het hom sy eerste medalje, 'n Bronze Star, besorg.
So 'n gewaagde aanval het tipies van Murphy geword. Hy was 'n skoot, sy slagveldinstinkte was vlymskerp en dit lyk asof hy vreesloos was. 'As ek een waardevolle ding tydens my vroeë gevegsdae ontdek het, was dit vermetelheid, wat dikwels as moed of dwaasheid beskou word,' het hy gesê. 'Dit is nie een nie. Vermetelheid is 'n taktiese wapen. Nege keer uit tien sal dit die vyand uit balans bring en hom verwar. ”
Vrymoedigheid of nie, vrees het nooit heeltemal verdwyn nie. 'In die hitte van die geveg kan dit verdwyn,' het Murphy geskryf. 'Soms verdwyn dit in 'n blinde, rooi woede wat kom as u 'n vriend sien val. Dan word jy weer so moeg dat jy onverskillig raak. Maar as u in 'n geveg beweeg, waarom probeer u uself dan so mislei? Vrees is daar langs jou. ”
Kompanjie B verlaat Italië op 12 Augustus 1944 om te veg in Operasie Dragoon, die geallieerde inval in Suid -Frankryk. Die Amerikaners het amper onbestrede aan wal geslinger. Murphy, nou 'n sersant, was op pad binneland toe met Kompanjie B toe 'n Duitse masjiengeweer op 'n rant bo 'n wingerd hulle vasgepen het. Privaat Lattie Tipton, 'n slinkse 33-jarige Tennessean wat Murphy se naaste vriend en soortgelyke vader geword het, het Murphy vorentoe gevolg om die Duitsers aan te pak. Murphy het hom aangemoedig om terug te gaan en 'n gewonde oor te laat behandel, maar Tipton het geweier. 'Kom nou Murphy,' het hy gesê, 'laat ons opklim. Hulle kan ons doodmaak, maar hulle kan ons nie eet nie. Dit is teen die wet. ” Minute later was Tipton dood. Die Duitsers het 'n wit vlag geswaai, en Tipton, alhoewel 'n ervare infanteris, het die fout gemaak om op te staan. Duitse masjiengewere het hom verraderlik reguit neergeskiet.
Tipton se dood het Murphy in 'n waas van woede geslinger. 'Ek onthou die ervaring terwyl ek 'n nagmerrie beleef,' het hy geskryf. 'Dit lyk asof 'n demoon in my liggaam gekom het. My brein is koud en logies. Ek dink nie aan die gevaar vir myself nie. My hele wese is gefokus op moord. Later vertel die mans wat in die wingerd vasgemaak is, dat ek hulle smeek en vloek, want hulle kom nie by my aan nie. ” Met 'n gevange Duitse masjiengeweer het Murphy die Duitsers wat sy vriend vermoor het, metodies gesny. 'Terwyl die geskeurde liggame flop en kronkel, hark ek dit weer,' skryf Murphy, 'en ek hou nie op met vuur nie, terwyl daar nog 'n lewenskil oor is.' Murphy het die Distinguished Service Cross gewen vir sy optrede die dag. Hy het die medalje aan Tipton se dogter gegee.
Tot op hierdie punt in die oorlog het Murphy op een of ander manier fisies ongedeerd oorleef. Hy het sy eerste wond opgedoen toe die Amerikaners noordwaarts deur Frankryk gestoot het, terwyl die Duitse leër voor hulle in die Vosges -berge terugtrek. Tydens een geveg het 'n mortier naby hom getref, wat twee soldate doodgemaak het en hom bewusteloos geslaan het. Die ontploffing het die voorraad van sy gelukkige karabyn (wat hy aanmekaar gekoppel het) verpletter, maar sy eie beserings was slegs gering.
Murphy se bekwaamheid op die slagveld het nie ongesiens verbygegaan nie, en ten spyte van sy protes dat hy in die rang wou bly, het hy op 14 Oktober 1944 'n tweede luitenant gekry. Minder as twee weke later, aangesien ysige weer op die bittere winter gesinspeel het kom, skiet 'n versteekte Duitse geweer hom in die heup. Selfs gewond en op die grond het Murphy daarin geslaag om die sluipskutter dood te maak voordat die skerpskutter hom kon afhandel. Maar sy wond het gou besmet geraak, en chirurge moes 'n groot stuk vleis uit sy heup verwyder. Drie maande later het Murphy weer by Company B aangesluit, net betyds vir een van die moeilikste optrede van die eenheid: die verslaan van die Duitse troepe in die Colmar Pocket, 'n bult wat uitgestrek is na Frankryk op die westelike oewer van die Rynrivier.
On January 26, Murphy and Company B found themselves on the outskirts of woods facing the German village of Holtzwihr. The day dawned miserably cold and uncomfortable as the small American force waited tensely for an attack. Finally, six German tanks supported by infantry began moving toward them from the village and quickly put two American tank destroyers near Murphy’s company out of action. Murphy sent his men back, but he stayed put with his field telephone. He was only 20 years old, and it did not look like he would live to see 21.
With his phone, Murphy called in artillery fire on the advancing German infantry. German tanks were approaching on his sides, but Murphy climbed onto a burning tank destroyer—which could have exploded at any second—and began firing its .50-caliber machine gun. He killed dozens of German soldiers, forcing the tanks to fall back due to lack of infantry protection. One German squad sneaking up on Murphy’s right got as close as 10 yards from him before he detected the threat. He shot the whole squad down. Somewhere along the way, Murphy got hit in the leg, but he kept fighting until he ran out of ammunition. Having killed about 50 Germans, he returned to his company, where he refused medical help and instead rallied his men to make a counterattack. The Germans were forced to retreat.
Later, Murphy heard that the enemy had stayed away from his burning tank destroyer because it looked ready to blow up. “I do not know about that,” he answered in his memoir, putting himself back into the scene. “I am conscious only that the smoke and the turret afford a good screen, and that, for the first time in three days, my feet are warm.”
Murphy’s heroics at Holtzwihr earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. The citation read, “Lt. Murphy’s indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy’s objective.” When the army found out Murphy was going to receive the medal, it pulled him off the front lines too many of these medals had ended up being awarded posthumously. Still, Murphy found a way into combat. On one occasion he went in to rescue his company when it was pinned down by German fire along the Siegfried Line in western Germany.
In June 1945, Murphy finally returned. He was a national hero. Life magazine put him on its cover, identifying him simply as “America’s Most Decorated Soldier.” The story inside told of his return to Farmville, Texas. One photograph showed him with his “special girl,” 19-year-old Mary Lee. “Audie hopes she is his own girl,” the caption read, “but he isn’t quite sure yet because he usually blushes when he gets within ten feet of any girl.” The Murphy Life portrayed could hardly have been more different from the Murphy that McClure came to know. While the two men worked together on To Hell And Back, Murphy told McClure about an Italian family in Rome that had invited him to dinner one day. Murphy said that before dinner he seduced the two daughters, and afterward, for good measure, he seduced the mother. “Audie seduced more girls than any man I ever knew with the possible exception of Errol Flynn,” McClure said. “He might even have topped Flynn.”
The Life story opened an unexpected door for Murphy. Actor James Cagney saw it and invited the young veteran to Hollywood. “All I saw him as was a typical fighting Irishman,” Cagney said. “Perhaps I imagined there was a little bit of me in Audie.” Cagney put Murphy up for a time in his Hollywood home and provided him with acting classes, but after two years, the country’s most decorated soldier was broke and living above a gymnasium.
It was around this time that McClure met Murphy. McClure was a fellow Texan and ex-army man, now working as an assistant to Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. He heard of Murphy’s plight and began to champion him. The two men became friends and started working on To Hell And Back, with McClure prodding the reluctant Murphy to provide material he could use in the book. “Audie had been burned out by the war,” McClure said later. “He reacted intensely to the death of his friends in combat. I supposed in order to keep from going insane he buried his emotions so deeply that getting them back was difficult if not impossible.” But McClure persevered, making up the material that Murphy couldn’t—or wouldn’t—supply, and the book came out in 1949 to favorable reviews.
McClure also used his Hollywood connections to help Murphy get movie roles. The first was in 1949’s Bad Boy. Murphy remained clear-eyed about his abilities. “You must remember I’m working under a handicap,” Murphy told the director in his self-deprecating way. “No talent.”
For the most part, Murphy acted in Western B-movies. One exception was The Red Badge of Courage, director John Huston’s 1951 adaptation of Stephen Crane’s story about a Civil War soldier who flees from battle. MGM didn’t want Murphy, but Huston fought for him, realizing he had the right qualities for the role. “They just don’t see Audie the way I do,” he said. “This little, gentle-eyed creature. Why, in the war he’d literally go out of his way to find Germans to kill. He’s a gentle little killer.”
There was another famous WWII veteran in Red Badge: Bill Mauldin, whose cartoons about the inanities of army life entertained GIs in the army publication Stars and Stripes. He had some sharp recollections of Murphy. “He was a scrappy little sonofabitch,” Mauldin said. “He would get into bare-knuckle fistfights just for fun with stuntmen. He was five foot four and he’d beat these guys up. They were tangling with a wildcat. That’s why Huston really liked him.”
Murphy delivered a fine low-key performance, but the movie never found an audience. After two disastrous previews, MGM cut the running time to less than 70 minutes and the film flopped. Red Badge was probably Murphy’s best shot at stardom now he slowly slipped back into the grind of forgettable B-movies. “I’m grateful to the movie business,” he said. “The only trouble is the type-casting. You make a success in Westerns, they milk it dry—until you are dry. That’s why Hollywood has just about dried up for somebody like me.” Murphy categorized himself as “a middle-sized failure.”
Murphy had one undeniable film success: playing himself in Universal’s 1955 adaptation of To Hell And Back. He re-created his combat experiences—even though they were layered over with Hollywood gloss—with an understated dignity that helped lift the movie above its otherwise pedestrian treatment of the war. The movie remained Universal’s biggest moneymaker until Jaws in 1975.
On the personal front, Murphy’s life maintained a slow downward slide. He married starlet Wanda Hendrix in 1949, but the marriage lasted only 15 months. Four days after his divorce, in 1951, he married Pamela Archer. That marriage, too, was strained. Murphy was a haunted man, tortured by insomnia, his nights interrupted by a recurring nightmare in which an army of faceless men attacked him on a hill. Murphy fought back in the dream with his trusty M-1 Garand rifle, but pieces of the gun kept flying off until he had only the trigger guard left.
Plagued by nightmares and sounds he thought he heard, Murphy began sleeping in a bedroom made up in his converted garage, with the lights on and with a pistol under his pillow. He tried using tranquilizers but got addicted to them, finally throwing away the pills and locking himself in a hotel room until the withdrawal symptoms ceased. He acted in more and more forgettable movies, invested in real estate, bred horses, and gambled. “I didn’t care if I won or lost,” he said “it was as if I wanted to destroy everything I had built up.” In 1968 he went bankrupt. Two years later, he was in the headlines again, when he and a friend were charged with beating up a dog trainer. In every news story, he was invariably identified as “America’s most decorated soldier.”
The experiences that had earned Murphy his decorations had taken their toll. Today, his symptoms would be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, but that term didn’t exist during his lifetime. He had emerged from the crucible of war, but he had not emerged unchanged. He had seen men die—ripped apart by machine guns, run over by tanks, obliterated by mortar fire. He had killed many men himself, supposedly accounting for 240 Germans single-handedly. “To become an executioner, somebody cold and analytical, to be trained to kill, and then to come back into civilian life and be alone in the crowd—it takes an awful long time to get over it,” he told journalist Thomas Morgan in 1967. “Fear and depression come over you.”
When Morgan visited Murphy at his house in California to interview him, he saw a small glass display box with some of his medals inside. The display was in disarray. The Medal of Honor looked “tacky,” Morgan noted, while the first of Murphy’s three Purple Hearts had fallen and lay face down at the bottom of the case. Like Murphy himself, the medals were ignored, forgotten. At the time of Morgan’s visit, Murphy, America’s most decorated soldier, had four more years to live. But part of him had already died, long before his airplane crashed into the top of Brush Mountain.
Tom Huntington, a contributing editor to America in WWII, has written for Smithsonian, American Heritage, Yankee, and other publications. This article appeared in the February 2007 issue of America in WWII. Find out how to order a copy of this issue here. To get more articles like this one, subscribe to America in WWII tydskrif.
Photos: Audie Murphy after the war, in 1945, at age 21 Murphy (right) with siblings Murphy playing himself in the 1955 movie To Hell and Back.
Military Career
A few months later, Murphy&aposs division moved to invade Sicily. His actions on the ground impressed his superior officers and they quickly promoted him to corporal. While fighting in the wet mountains of Italy, Murphy contracted malaria. Despite such setbacks, he continually distinguished himself in battle.
In August 1944, Murphy&aposs division moved to southern France as part of Operation Dragoon. It was there that his best friend, Lattie Tipton, was lured into the open and killed by a German soldier pretending to surrender. Enraged by this act, Murphy charged and killed the Germans that had just killed his friend. He then commandeered the German machine gun and grenades and attacked several more nearby positions, killing all of the German soldiers there. Murphy was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions.
Over the course of World War II, Murphy witnessed the deaths of hundreds of fellow and enemy soldiers. Endowed with great courage in the face of these horrors, he was awarded 33 U.S. military medals, including three Purple Hearts and one Medal of Honor.
In June 1945, Murphy returned home from Europe a hero and was greeted with parades and elaborate banquets. LIFE magazine honored the brave, baby-faced soldier by putting him on the cover of its July 16, 1945 issue. That photograph inspired actor James Cagney to call Murphy and invite him to Hollywood to begin an acting career. Despite his celebrity, however, Murphy struggled for years to gain recognition.
Quality journalism doesn't come free
Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn't cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support.
The Incredible Story of How I Came to Possess the Gun Audie Murphy Learned to Shoot With
In 1966, I was a young boy of nine years old, and my father took me to Renner Road, a section of of land near Dallas, Texas that was once a rural community of about 10 square miles. There he let me shoot a Winchester single shot .22 caliber rifle for the first time.
But it wasn’t just any Winchester single shot .22 caliber rifle.
After a few hours had passed, and my dad was placing the rifle back into its leather gun sleeve, he turned and looked at me and said, “Don’t ever let go of this gun. Audie Murphy used it.”
I looked at him in bewilderment, and being only a young boy then, replied, “Who is Audie Murphy?” My father just smiled and said, “Someone we grew up with in Farmersville.”
Reminiscing Leads to Researching
This Winchester has been in my possession for many, many years. But as a young man attending college, then married with children and working, etc., I had no time to hunt or think about what I had in my possession up through adulthood.
After my parents passed, I started to reminisce about the days I had spent with my father in my youth. Then the thought hit me about shooting the rifle, and I remembered I had a gun my dad told me never to get rid of. One that Audie Murphy had used to hunt when he and my dad were both young boys.
According to research records, the rifle was manufactured sometime between 1935-37, and was most likely shared back and forth between the boys until they enlisted in 1942. Although I can’t say how many times Audie may have shot the rifle, my father’s words, along with the dates, make me confident it was more than just a few times.
Now, several years later, I was an educated adult and acutely aware of who Audie Murphy was and the legacy he left behind. Since most of his generation has now passed on, I went into a state of mild panic, because I apparently had an irreplaceable piece of history in my possession, but just an oral statement from my father many years ago attesting that it was used by Audie Murphy.
I had by now obtained a bachelors and a masters degree, and I went into student research mode and began my personal project on the rifle in 2014. I didn’t know at that time what a daunting task I was about to face…
Discouraged but Not Defeated
My first thought was to discover if there were any direct living relatives of Audie Murphy. To my surprise, Nadine, one of Audie’s sisters, was alive, and I was given her phone number by the Audie Murphy Museum in Greenville, Texas.
My first contact did not go as well as I wanted it to. Given that she was 79 years old, I had no idea how healthy Nadine would be. I quickly learned that not only was she healthy, but she also had the old spark of an Irish woman. Once I had spoken to her about the rifle and its history, she really didn't have much to say about the rifle, and added in a stern voice, “I don't remember your family!”
I thanked her for taking my call and also thanked her for Audie's heroism during WWII. Nadine replied firmly that, “He wasn't my only brother I had who was a hero.” A bit taken aback by that, I simply told her I agreed! Nadine had a brother who worked as a Deputy Sherriff and who was tragically killed on duty. With apologies and gratitude, I said my goodbyes.
Being so discouraged from that initial conversation, I nearly gave up hope that I could ever learn the real history of the rifle my dad left me. It seemed everything about Audie Murphy had already been told, found, sold, displayed on websites, available for view in museums or in pictures hung on walls in his honor across the nation.
But there I sat with the gun that was used by Audie and my father as young boys hunting to put food on the table. Moreover, this was the rifle that created the marksman who went on the become the most decorated soldier of WWII, and whose sharpshooting skills during the frontline battles with German soldiers saved countless American lives.
With these thoughts in my mind, I was once again energized to seek out more details to substantiate my father’s words and the rifle he passed down to me.
A Modern Key to the Past
Both sides of my family lived within close proximity of the Murphys while in the Farmersville area. Because they were all sharecroppers picking cotton, planting onions, and the like, they would travel to where there was work to be had. This would include not only Farmersville, but other rural communities, namely: Princeton, Celeste, Floyd, all the way to Emory – where my parents were married. Nothing between these towns but old Texas black clay dirt and row after row of cotton… not much different from today.
My next quest was to see if there were pictures on the internet with Audie holding the Winchester. I had low expectations going in, but to my surprise, I came across one picture showing Audie after a squirrel hunt holding a rifle and standing next to an old car, and yes, may dead squirrels.
I researched Audie’s height, weight, and physical characteristics, which I found online. I also used the picture to estimate some of the dimensions of the rifle. I then considered who would be a perfect match for these measurements of Audie for comparison purposes? I turned to ask my wife, and behold! I had Audie standing in front of me – at least the female version.
My first thought was, “Wow! How did a young man this small cause so much damage in WWII?” I had my wife position herself with the gun just like Audie in the picture. It matched perfectly. I also had her move her hands up the barrel and made more comparisons to the picture. Still a perfect match. Lastly, I had a professional authenticator successfully examine the picture along with my gun to confirm it was a Winchester rifle like my father’s.
Connecting the Dots
So now I have my dad’s word, some family history connecting us to the Murphys, and a childhood picture of Audie holding a rifle matching the one I have in my possession.
Backtracking a bit for a moment – many years ago I was sifting through some family pictures my mother handed down to me. I came across a picture of a small group of women standing together by an old white house (it was more like a shack) with the solemn background of a cotton field.
My mother – thank goodness! – could always be relied upon to put the names of people who were pictured on the back of photos for future reference. When I flipped the card over, I was elated to find that she had written “Audie’s sister” as one of the ladies in the picture!
Now I have a dated rifle, a picture of Audie with a very similar looking rifle, and a picture showing that our families did intertwine with each other. I wished there had been more pictures like this, but I'm sure they were hard to come by during the Depression era. I was ecstatic to have at least this one, almost conclusive, piece of evidence.
The Light at the End of a Very Long Tunnel
Pushing forward about five years, I finally saw the light at the end of a very long tunnel.
I thought it would be a good time to reach back out to Audie’s last, surviving, immediate family member, Nadine. Some years had passed since we first spoke, and I wasn’t sure she was even still alive or would accept any contact.
Again, I reached out to the museum, and they gave me the good news that she was still alive, but aging. The people at the museum told me she would only accept mail as communication. I set out to write her an update on what I had discovered and requested that we meet so I could show her the rifle.
I waited for her response for several weeks to point that I assumed she wasn't going to respond at all. Then, one day, to my surprise, I received a letter back from her. Again, in her persistent Irish way wrote, she said she did not know of me or the gun and that it was so long ago.
Well, being a stubborn Irishman myself, I googled her phone number and found a match. Before I called her, I looked at my wife and exclaimed, “I am a sixty-one-year-old male, and I am terrified to call this lady!”
But I did call her. An older female answered the phone: “Hello?” I thought, “So far, so good!” I asked her, “Are you Nadine, Audie's sister?” Her reply was, “Yes I am…”
All of a sudden, I couldn't speak. A lump developed in my throat, and I was afraid she was going to hang up on me if I told her who I was. I finally untied my tongue and took a deep swallow before I told her I was William Trammell, the man who mailed her the letter about the rifle.
Then the clouds parted, and sunshine filled the room. Nadine said she was so sorry about the brash letter response, and that she had been thinking of me ever since she had mailed it.
Thereafter, I had the most wonderful conversation from the loveliest lady since my own mother was alive. It turned out that Nadine had worked at Texas Instruments, where my mother worked as well. We discussed many things that night, and by the end of our conversation, I thought I was actually talking to my mother. She said that she thought I was an “good honest young man,” and added she was sorry that so many people have tried to approach her who deceived her family. She had just been protecting herself. I told her, “I don't blame you one bit for that. I would do the same if my brother were Audie Murphy!”
We ended a long, fruitful conversation, and at the end, I let slip quickly, as though I were talking on the phone with my own mother, "I love you.” She replied, "I love you, too.”
What a sweet woman to have had the time to spend with – even if were only by phone. I hope we get to meet each other in person at the Audie Murphy Day celebration in June 2019. That is our plan.
My wife overheard our conversation, and I was so excited that I wanted to keep talking about it. That's when I realized I have an Uncle John Smith (my mother's brother) who would be the same age as Nadine. Maybe he knew the Murphys?
I contacted Uncle John and asked if he ever remembered the Murphy family. He said, “Of course. One of them lived directly behind us at one time.”
Really? Now living “directly behind” someone then does not mean what it means now. The house my uncle referred to was on the other side of a cotton field, probably.
My Uncle John was born in 1934, as was Nadine. So they were much younger than Audie and my parents. Audie was born the same year as my mother – in 1925, not in 1924! He had to “exaggerate” his age to enter the service. Although Audie was born in Kingston, Texas, it was soon after that his family moved to Farmersville, where my family had already been established.
I told my uncle about the Winchester, and he said he remembered my father (Dub) showing it to him. My wife and I just recently returned from a trip to see my uncle. Once I showed him the gun, he remarked, “That’s it.”
The last piece of the puzzle is a snippet I found in a television documentary in which Nadine is interviewed. At the very end she talks about how great a shooter Audie was, and that they would have starved had it not been for his hunting skills. She goes on to say that, “He used a little old .22, but I’m not sure where he got it from.”
Well, I think I can safely say where he got it. It was my father’s Winchester rifle that he shared with Audie Murphy, and which is still in my possession today.
Audie Murphy, From World War II Hero to Hollywood Hitmaker
Audie Murphy was a bona fide World War II hero, a term which, in these days of endless American conflicts, seems both antiquated and slightly offensive even. But in his time, Murphy — maybe the greatest war hero the country ever has seen — was an out-and-out superstar. He fashioned a grateful country's unbridled adulation into a career as one of Hollywood's biggest draws, most famously playing the lead role in his own film autobiography, "To Hell and Back."
Yet the war that made him famous, as is the case with many who fight, never left him.
"A hero is somebody who takes an abstract virtue and embodies it for a short time," says David A. Smith, the author of "The Price of Valor: The Life of Audie Murphy, America's Most Decorated Hero of World War II." Smith teaches history at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. "As human beings, we're not comfortable with abstractions. But if you show me what honor looks like, even a glimpse, I'll know. If you show me what valor looks like, then I'll know what it means.
"Audie Murphy fit the role of a hero. Being a hero is great for the society. But it's really hard on the person who, for a moment, becomes a hero."
The Roots of a Legend
Born in Hunt County, Texas, in 1925, the son of Irish sharecroppers, Audie Leon Murphy grew up in extreme poverty — the Great Depression began in 1929 — inside a family in turmoil. Murphy's father deserted the family when he was just a kid. When Murphy was 16, as World War II broke out in Europe, his mother died. Some of his younger siblings were placed in an orphanage.
"[T]o say that the family was poor would be an understatement. Poverty dogged our every step," Murphy wrote in "To Hell and Back," his 1949 memoir. "Year after year the babies had come until there were nine of us children living, and two dead. Getting food for our stomachs and clothes for our back was an ever-present problem. As soon as we were old enough to handle a plow, an ax, or a hoe, we were thrown into the struggle for existence," he wrote.
Just 5-foot-5 (1.6 meters) and barely 100 pounds (45 kilograms), Murphy dreamed of the service as a way out. After his mother died, he tried to join the Marines but was turned down for being too small and too young. He was finally accepted into the U.S. Army, with some tweaked documentation, in June 1942. He was just 17.
After his training in the States, Murphy was shipped to North Africa with the 3rd Infantry Division, the beginning of a short but unparalleled career in which he was awarded every medal for valor that the Army could confer. (Some of the original commendations are here.) One of his battlefield exploits, in particular, became legendary.
During a firefight in France on Jan. 26, 1945, an American tank destroyer was hit by German fire, setting it ablaze and forcing the crew to abandon. Murphy ordered artillery fire on the German positions and called for his men to retreat to nearby woods. But Murphy did not fall back. Instead, he mounted the burning tank, grabbed control of its .50-caliber machine gun, and faced with hostile fire from three sides for more than an hour, kept the Germans at bay, killing scores of them. Murphy was wounded in both legs in the fight.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. From the his citation (via the Smithsonian Institution):
Murphy returned home to parades — some 300,000 people in San Antonio — more awards (from France and Belgium, too), and rewards that enabled him to buy a house for his older sister, where his younger siblings came to live for some time. On July 16, 1945, a smiling Murphy was featured on the cover of Life Magazine with the words "Most Decorated Soldier."
6. Ononderbroke (2014)
After crashing their plane in WWII, Olympian Louis Zamperini spends 47 days on a life raft with two fellow crewmen. Eventually, he’s caught by the Japanese and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp where he’s tortured and forced to endure hard labor — but he never gives up.
(Image via Universal Pictures)
North Korea threatens pre-emptive strikes after ‘madcap joint military drills’
Posted On February 04, 2020 17:24:11
North Korea has threatened its own pre-emptive strikes in response to recent drills for “decapitation” strikes by U.S. and South Korean special operations forces aimed at taking out the leadership in Pyongyang.
The simulated strikes reportedly targeted the upper echelons of the North Korean regime, including leader Kim Jong Un, as well as key nuclear sites.
They also involved the participation of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team 6 — the outfit famed for killing al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, the Asahi Shimbun reported earlier this month. Media reports said a number of U.S. special operations forces also participated, including U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force and Green Berets.
North Korea recently launched satellite-carrying Unha rockets, which is the same delivery system as North Korea’s Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, which was tested successfully in December 2012 and January 2016. (Photo: Reuters/KNCA)
In a statement released March 26 by the Korean People’s Army (KPA), a spokesman said the “madcap joint military drills” would be met with the North’s “own style of special operation and pre-emptive attack,” which it said could come “without prior warning any time.”
The statement, published by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the U.S. and South Korea “should think twice about the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their outrageous military actions.
“The KPA’s warning is not hot air,” the statement added.
In mid-March, several U.S. Marine F-35B stealth fighter jets conducted bombing practice runs over the Korean Peninsula as a part of the joint exercises, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.
The dispatch of the fighters, based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, was the first time they had been sent to the Korean Peninsula. The fighters returned to Japan after the drills wrapped up.
Pyongyang has stepped up efforts to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile over the last year and a half, conducting two atomic explosions and more than 25 missile launches — including an apparent simulated nuclear strike on the U.S. base at Iwakuni.
In the event of conflict on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. troops and equipment from Iwakuni would likely be among the first deployed.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is in the midst of a policy review on North Korea, and has said all options, including military action, remain on the table.
But this review could be bumped up Trump’s list of priorities in the near future.
U.S. and South Korean intelligence sources, as well as recent satellite imagery, has shown that the North is apparently ready to conduct its sixth nuclear test at any time, media reports have said.
MIGHTY TRENDING
Audie Murphy received every combat award which the United States Army could offer, as well as awards from its European Allies France and Belgium, for his heroism as an infantryman during the Second World War. He wrote memoirs of his combat days entitled To Hell and Back and appeared as himself in a film made of the book under the same name.
Murphy enjoyed a film career of just over twenty years, in war films and westerns, and eventually branched into television. Murphy became an accomplished horse breeder and though not a performing musician wrote several songs which were recorded by artists such as Harry Nilsson, Roy Clark, Bobby Dare, Dean Martin, and many others.
In late May of 1971, Murphy was killed in a private airplane crash near Roanoke, Virginia. He was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, and his widow began what became a 35-year career with the Veteran&rsquos Administration as a clerk, living in a small apartment in Los Angeles. Given that the war hero had enjoyed a lengthy and successful career in entertainment, with a best-selling book, numerous successful films, and television and music success, questions arose over his finances. What happened to Murphy&rsquos money?
Most of his money was lost in poor investments with his horses. Murphy made many bad business decisions regarding his horse breeding investments and the losses contributed to a depression that originated in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) resulting from his combat experiences. He developed a gambling habit that put greater strain on his available funds. He tried to make business deals in areas in which he had little expertise &ndash looking for a quick return &ndash and lost still more money.
In the late 1960s, an oil deal in Algeria collapsed costing Murphy over a quarter of a million, and unpaid taxes to the IRS were troubling him too. Murphy, a child of the depression, had come from a virtually destitute family and sadly died in similar circumstances. After his death, a lawsuit over the causes of the plane crash in which he died eventually afforded his family some financial relief.
