Audie Murphy Machine Gun Nest Killed by Him

On January 26, 1945, Audie Murphy and some xl U.Due south. troops sat shivering in a frigid, snow-covered clearing near the Alsatian town of Holtzwihr. The battle-weary soldiers had been ordered to hold a vital roadway until reinforcements arrived, only the performance was delayed and the promised relief was nowhere to be seen. Just after 2 p.yard., the winter stillness was of a sudden cleaved past the thunderclap of an enemy arms barrage. In the distance, some 250 German troops and vi tanks emerged from the wood.

Equally he watched the Germans line up for an attack, Potato felt a wave of panic rise in his belly. It was a familiar feeling, i he'd learned to control during 18 months of bitter fighting across Italian republic and French republic. At just 19 years old, the infant-faced Texan had already won two Silver Stars and the Distinguished Service Cross, and he was leading men 10 years his senior into battle. Once the shooting began, he knew his instincts would accept over. "The fretfulness volition relax," he later on wrote, "the heart, end its thumping. The encephalon will turn to animal cunning. The job is straight earlier us: destroy and survive."

Murphy knew that his men stood no adventure confronting so large a force, then he instructed near of them to withdraw to pre-prepared defensive positions along a nearby tree line. As they ran for encompass, he stayed behind and used his field telephone to call in an artillery strike. He had just plenty fourth dimension to radio in his coordinates before salvos of German tank burn erupted around him. One crush immediately drilled a tree near a machine gun nest and showered its crew with deadly splinters of wood; another striking a nearby tank destroyer and gear up information technology ablaze.

Spud with medals

Spud's control post was collapsing before his eyes, only he held his ground and connected calling in the Allied artillery. In seconds, a pall of friendly fire rained downward between him and the advancing German language infantry, pitting the open up field with craters and shrouding everything in a haze of smoke. After emptying his M-ane carbine at the enemy, Murphy grabbed his field telephone and took encompass atop the burning tank destroyer. Over the radio, he could hear the artillery commander asking how shut the Germans were to his position. "Merely hold the phone and I'll let you talk to one of the bastards!" he yelled dorsum.

The tank destroyer was slowly being engulfed in flames, only Irish potato saw that its .50-caliber machine gun turret was withal operational. He quickly seized the gun and sprayed a withering fire against the High german troops nearest his position. "My numbed encephalon is intent just on destroying," Murphy afterwards wrote in his autobiography. "I am conscious only that the smoke and the turret beget a good screen, and that, for the beginning time in three days, my feet are warm." He continued firing burst subsequently burst, mowing down Nazi troopers past the dozen and keeping the tanks at bay. All the while, he remained on the phone, directing artillery fire ever closer to his own position and dealing catastrophic damage to the advancing infantry.

Gyre to Continue

From their cover on the edge of the tree line, most of Murphy's troops could only watch in shock. "I expected to see the whole damn tank destroyer blow upwards under him any minute," Private Anthony Abramski later wrote. In fact, the bonfire may accept saved Irish potato'south life. Many of the German troops and tank commanders couldn't run across him behind the veil of smoke and flames, and those that did resisted getting too shut out of fear that the vehicle was well-nigh to explode.

Despite the hail of Allied artillery shells, fresh waves of German infantrymen continued inching toward Potato's position. One squad tried to make a flanking maneuver on his right side, only to be cut down in a hail of pinpoint fire from his .50-caliber gun. As Murphy continued his ane-human attack, German gunners riddled his smoldering tank destroyer with small arms and tank fire. One boom nigh threw him from the vehicle and sent razor sharp shrapnel flying into his leg, simply he took no account of the wound and kept fighting. Information technology was only when Murphy ran out of ammunition that he finally withdrew. Dazed and bloodied, he jumped from the withal-burning tank destroyer and limped to his men. He later on wrote that as he walked abroad, one thought in detail kept racing through his mind: "How come up I'thou non expressionless?"

Murphy'due south men were no incertitude wondering the same thing. It was the "greatest display of guts and backbone I take always seen," a stunned Abramski later wrote. "For an 60 minutes he held off the enemy strength singlehanded, fighting against impossible odds." Murphy had personally killed or wounded some 50 enemy troops and directed artillery against dozens more than. Even after reaching safety, he refused to be evacuated from the field and instead rallied his men in a counterattack that drove the Germans back into the woods.

Audie Murphy was hailed a national hero and awarded the Medal of Honor for his jaw dropping exploits at Holtzwihr. Not wanting to risk the life of its newest celebrity soldier, the Ground forces reassigned him equally a liaison officer and did its best to keep him out of combat until the state of war ended. Past so, the boxing-hardened Thousand.I. had endured three wounds, a nasty case of malaria, gangrene and more dead friends than he cared to recall. "In that location is VE-Twenty-four hours without," he wrote of his mixed feelings at the war's end, "simply no peace within."

Murphy returned home in June 1945 to a hero'due south welcome of parades, swarming reporters and his face on the comprehend of Life Magazine. On the advice of screen legend James Cagney, he later took his adolescent good looks to Hollywood, where he forged a flick career that included more 40 credits, virtually of them in Westerns and war films. His most famous role came in 1955, when he played himself in "To Hell and Dorsum," a blockbuster adaptation of his own memoir well-nigh World State of war II. Reliving the horrors of combat in front end of the camera proved hard for White potato, who had suffered from nightmares and flashbacks since returning home. He later spoke publicly nearly his decades-long struggle with mail service-traumatic stress disorder, and urged the U.S. regime to provide improve mental healthcare for its veterans.

"To Hell and Back" was a blast hit—the film was Universal Studios' most profitable release until "Jaws" in 1975—and it helped seal White potato's reputation as 1 of the virtually famous American veterans of Globe War Two. But despite having won several dozen medals for valor, he e'er resisted attempts to label him a hero. "Bravery is merely determination to do a job that you know has to be washed," he told reporters upon returning home in 1945. "I simply fought to stay live, like anyone else, I approximate."

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Audie Murphy Machine Gun Nest Killed by Him

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