Military Myths and Legends: The Legendary Audie Murphy

The U.S. Army's history is filled with heroes, battlefield legends, and stories that seem like they could only come from the minds of Hollywood screenwriters. There are few larger-than-life tales of greatness bigger than that of World War II legend Audie Murphy, whose battlefield daring became an instant silver-screen classic – starring Audie Murphy himself. 

Murphy's early life did not suggest a life destined for greatness. He was the son of a Texas sharecropper who abandoned his family and a mother who died when he was a teen. Young Audie left school in the fifth grade to work in cotton fields and hunt game to help support his family. He joined the military in 1941, just days after the United States entered World War II. At the age of 16, he was technically too young to serve but forged papers allowed him to make it past the recruiter's office. Even so, he was turned down by every branch for being too small. 

Luckily for the Army, it was the branch who finally accepted him for service. He would famously become the most decorated combat soldier in all of World War II. As a soldier, Murphy had the audacity (and the opportunity) to become a living legend. He took part in the invasion of Sicily in 1943, he fought at Anzio, liberated Rome, and invaded southern France as part of Operation Dragoon and fought his way across France. Along the way, he received every combat award the Army could give its troops. In the French region of Alsace, he fought a battle so intense he would receive the Medal of Honor.

As the 1944 Battle of the Bulge began to turn against the Nazi war machine, the German Army launched its last major operation on the Western Front of the war. Operation Northwind called for the 1st and 19th German Armies to support the German forces fighting in the ever-shrinking Bulge by destroying the Allied armies in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace, and Lorraine. It was kill or be killed. An estimated 30,000 Germans formed a pocket around the French city of Colmar that prevented the Allies from pushing into Germany itself. 

By January 1945, Murphy was a Lieutenant, having received a battlefield commission after directing his men by radio, under fire, to take a hill near L'Omet the previous October. He was wounded two weeks later, after being shot in the hip by a sniper, but rejoined his platoon on January 14 in the area around the Colmar Pocket. He was wounded yet again on January 24, after the Germans struck the city of Holtzwihr, but this time, he remained with his men – and it's a good thing he did. 

Two days later, the attacking Germans hit an M10 tank destroyer, setting it on fire. As the crew abandoned the vehicle, Murphy ordered his soldiers to fall back into the treeline. As he'd done near L'Omet, Murphy stood ahead of the platoon with a radio and directed fire on the advancing enemy. Armed with only his M1 carbine to hold his position, he had to climb onto the burning tank destroyer. From there, he started pouring fire into the Germans with its mounted .50-caliber machine gun. As the M10 burned around him, he stayed on the gun for more than an hour, killing 50 enemy soldiers and holding off the entire advance. Despite being wounded in the leg, he only left the machine gun when he ran out of bullets. He rejoined his unit and led them in a counterattack.

For selflessly leading the defense of his platoon by mounting a burning tank destroyer, he received the Medal of Honor and a second Presidential Unit Citation when the 3rd Infantry Division received the award. He stayed on the front until February 18, when he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and received the Legion of Merit. 

His story doesn't end there. He remained in the Army Reserve and later the Texas National Guard until 1969, but in the meantime, he became an actor. After writing his memoir, "To Hell and Back," with the help of David "Spec" McClure, a fellow Army veteran, he found a series of bit parts in films before becoming a leading man in 1949's "Bad Boy," a movie about a delinquent teen (Murphy was only 24 years old at the time). Some 13 films later, he would star as himself in the film adaptation of "To Hell And Back." He appeared in 50 films over the course of his career. 

Before he died in a 1971 plane crash, Murphy would become a fierce advocate for post-traumatic stress disorder research. He spent much of his postwar life suffering from the effects of PTSD. He tried to draw attention to the same struggles faced by returning veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars and extend health care benefits to returning veterans. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery with an ordinary grave marker by his own request. It was an ordinary capstone to an otherwise extraordinary life.