Little Big Man

His life started out tough, then got tougher, then even tougher, then still tough but successful, then tough again, but then ended really bad.

In the photos I’ve seen of him, Leon looked like a kid, mainly because, well, he was one…

 … and he also was one of the toughest and most heroic men who ever lived.

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Leon had to be tough from birth.  He was born in Texas in 1925, the seventh of 12 children of a sharecropping couple.  Their father was a lackadaisical parent, drifting in and out of the family then abandoning them when Leon was 15.

Their mother worked harder than ever to keep the big family alive, and Leon dropped out of school in the fifth grade to help support them by picking cotton for $1 a day, which is roughly equivalent to $20 in 2021.  He also picked up a rifle somewhere and became a good shot, putting game on the table to help feed his siblings.

About a year after his father abandoned the family, their mother succumbed to endocarditis and pneumonia.  Leon would later lament, “She died when I was sixteen. She had the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen. It reached almost to the floor. She rarely talked; and always seemed to be searching for something. What it was I don’t know. We didn’t discuss our feelings. But when she passed away, she took something of me with her. It seems I’ve been searching for it ever since.”

At the time of his mother’s death, Leon was working at a radio repair shop as well as a combination general store, garage, and gas station.

In 1956, he was heard to comment, “I can’t ever remember being young in my life.”

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War was stirring in Europe and, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, like millions of young men in the United States, he tried to enlist.  At 5’5”, sixteen-years-old, and weighing 100 pounds, he wasn’t a poster model for enlistment.  He was turned down by the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.  Leon went away and started a weight-gain regimen, managing to put on 12 pounds.  He convinced his older sister to help him lie about his age but couldn’t really do anything about his stature.

With his sister to sign an affidavit that he was actually eighteen, Leon joined the United States Army ten days after his seventeenth birthday.

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Leon took on Army training and distinguished himself with a single-mindedness of purpose.  He would later indicate that most of his actions in the war were not so much heroism but a determination to do his job and stay alive.

Leon saw repeated fierce action and continued to distinguish himself, receiving accelerated promotion and reaching the rank of staff sergeant (E-6) by January 1944.  Besides promotion, Leon had been earning honors for his actions.  Those medals began to accumulate.

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After landing on Yellow Beach near Ramatuelle, on August 15, 1944, during the first wave of the Allied invasion of southern France, Leon’s platoon was making its way through a vineyard when they were attacked by German soldiers.  He returned fire, killing two and wounding one.  Two Germans exited a house about 100 yards away and presented themselves for surrender.  Leon’s best friend went forward to receive them, but the tricksters killed him.  Leon lost control.  Under heavy fire, he advanced alone on the house, where he killed six, wounded two and took 11 prisoners.

For his actions, Leon received the Distinguished Service Cross.

He was with the First Battalion, 15^th Infantry Regiment during the August 27-28 offensive at Montélimar, receiving the Presidential Unit Citation.

He got his first Purple Heart for being wounded in a mortar shell blast.  A month later, at L’Omet Quarry in Cleurie River Valley, he killed four of the enemy and wounded three more at a machine gun nest, earning the Silver Star.  Three days after that, the young staff sergeant ignored his own safety and crawled alone toward the Germans, carrying a radio.  There, while sustaining direct fire from the enemy, he used the radio to direct his men for an hour.  When they got to Leon an hour later, they found 15 dead Germans and 35 wounded, earning him a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his brand new Silver Star.

About a week later Leon was awarded a battlefield commission and a promotion to second lieutenant. 

The young lieutenant waited not quite two weeks before earning his next medal…another purple heart…plus a little time off.

He was platoon leader of the Third Platoon of Company B when it was attacked by a German sniper group.  Leon captured two before another one shot him in the hip.  He returned fire, drilling the sniper between the eyes.

At the hospital, gangrene developed in the hip wound which cost him partial use of the hip joint and kept him out of combat for two months.  The experience earned him his first Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart.

A couple weeks after returning to combat, Leon was with the Third Division when they faced a strong German counterattack in the Colmar area.  Leon was wounded in both legs, earning a second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart and promotion to commander of Company B.

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When Company B was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry, the Germans scored a direct hit on an M10 tank destroyer, setting it afire, and forcing the crew to abandon it.   Leon knew his men were in grave danger, so he ordered them to retreat to positions in the woods while he remained alone at his post, shooting his M1 carbine and directing artillery fire via his field radio even as the Germans shot directly at his position.  Leon climbed aboard the burning tank destroyer and began firing its .50 caliber machine gun at the advancing Germans.  He was alone and exposed to enemy fire from three sides, but he shot and killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver.  The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate the brand new second lieutenant, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to sneak up on his right flank.  Germans got within ten yards of him, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted.   He then ran through enemy fire to rejoin his men.  Ignoring his injury, he mustered his own troops and led them back to repel the Germans.  Afterwards, he insisted on remaining with his men while his wounds were treated.

For his actions that day, Leon was awarded the Medal of Honor. The Third Infantry Division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions at the Colmar Pocket, giving him a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for the emblem.

On 16 February, Leon was promoted to first lieutenant and was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service from 22 January 1944 to 18 February 1945.  He was moved from the front lines to Regimental Headquarters and made a liaison officer.

Audie Leon Murphy was nineteen years old.

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At 5’5” tall and hovering around 112 pounds for the entire war, Audie Murphy earned every single medal the United States Army could present for valorous action in World War II.

Every…single…one.

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Normally I would close this post on such a high note, but there is so much more to the life of this incredible man that I have to keep going.

After the war, Murphy returned home and bought his older sister a new home, where his siblings (some of whom had been placed in orphanages by the state of Texas) moved in.

Actor James Cagney contacted Murphy about becoming a film star.  Cagney gave up on that idea and the two ended their association without making a movie.

Murphy wouldn’t give up though and continued studying the craft.  He would go on to have a 21 year career as an actor, appearing in 40 feature films (mostly westerns and war movies) as well as a short-lived TV series.  Most notably, Murphy played himself in the movie To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of his WWII service of the same name.

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Like so many other war veterans Audie Murphy suffered from PTSD  (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  He found himself short-tempered and explosive.  He also had trouble sleeping, experiencing nightmares and flashbacks.  He often woke at night screaming and was known to sleep with a .45 automatic.

Loaded…under his pillow.

His care and concern for fellow soldiers however led him to go public with his personal struggle with PTSD, which was known as battle fatigue in those days.  He begged the United States to stand up for its soldiers the same way they had stood up for it.  He called for better mental healthcare for veterans.

PTSD wasn’t the only thing Murphy struggled with.  Although he did not smoke and rarely drank, he did gamble, and lost much of his fortune at the horse track. 

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On May 28, 1971, Murphy was in a private airplane flying from Atlanta, Georgia to Martinsville, Virginia when the pilot called in to Roanoke, Virginia airport to say they would be landing there due to poor flying conditions.

They never made it, crashing instead into Brush Mountain about 20 miles outside Roanoke.  The pilot, Murphy, and four other passengers were killed instantly.

Audie Leon Murphy was buried in Arlington Cemetery with full military honors.  His is the second most visited grave (after President John F. Kennedy) at the cemetary.

At Arlington, graves of Medal of Honor recipients are normally decorated in gold leaf, but not Audie Murphy’s.  A man who was known for his friendliness and faithfulness, as well as the fact that he never thought he was superior to anyone, Murphy had once said, when it came time to bury him, he wanted his stone to be plain and inconspicuous, like an ordinary soldier.

Many would argue that Audie was anything but an ordinary soldier…and I would agree.

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To all the brave men and women who have served in the United States Military, on this Memorial Day I would like to thank you for your service. May God Bless you.

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