There have been many moments in reading this World War 2 history triology that have made my jaw drop, but this one paragraph in particular, out of nearly 3,000 pages, made me blink and re-read it, several times: Audie Murphy helped redeem the day with valor uncommon even by his standards. Since advancing up the Rhone and across the Vosges with the 3rd Division, Murphy-who was still not yet old enough to vote or to shave more than once a week-had collected two Silver Stars, a battlefield commission, and a severe wound that turned gangrenous and cost him several pounds of flesh whittled from his right hip and buttock. Rejoining the 15th Infantry in mid-January after two months recuperation, he soon took command of the same company he had joined as a private in North Africa two years earlier; it was now reduced to 18 men and a single officer, himself. On January 26th, two hundred(!) German infantrymen with half a dozen Panzers (!!) attacked from the woods near Riedwihr. Clutching a map and a field phone, Second Lieutenant Murphy leaped onto a burning tank destroyer and for an hour single handedly repulsed the enemy with a .50-caliber machine gun while calling in artillery salvos. He killed them in the draws, in the meadows, in the woods, a sergeant reported; the dead included a dozen Germans huddled like partridges in a nearby ditch. Things seemed to slow down for me, Murphy later said. Things became very clarified. DeLattre described the action as the bravest thing a man had ever done in battle, but Murphy reflected that there is no exhilaration at being alive. He would recieve the Medal of Honor. (Rick Atkinson, The Guns At Last Light, pg. 532) So, uh... how was your day today? :-/
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:28:01 +0000
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