.....Posted on 01/26/2015 2:49:21 PM PST by virgil283
today 26 Jan 1944-"Lieutenant Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him to his right one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. Lieutenant Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, Lieutenant Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer which was in danger of blowing up any instant and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to the German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. ..."
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(Excerpt) Read more at ww2today.com ...
I don’t doubt that he and many more pilots made similar comments.
Jerry Garcia, 8/1/1942 -8/9/1995.
I heard the story that one of the “bad guy” actors told Audi that, in reality, he was faster than him on the draw than was shown in the movie.
Audi’s response was: “Let’s find out using real loaded guns.”
Somehow a real gunfight never took place.
He was a hungry kid from North central East Texas the rest is history. I might go on but the rest is just nothing.
Pete Seeger was in the Army in WWII.
I think it was a light twin. I want to say a Cessna 340...without checking.
“Actually, those folks you named would’ve been in the (ludicrously named) “Silent Generation”,”
I’m one of them—I prefer “The Lucky Few’ as an appellation. We are usually ignored.
“http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2008/luckyfew.aspx";
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The silent generation was the foundation of the greatest American music ever made — Big bands, bebop, West Coast Jazz, etc.
It flared and died in a matter of some 15 years because it was replaced by R&R.
Jimi Hendrix was not a paratrooper.
I thought it was interesting so read several short biographies. A couple said he entered paratrooper training but was injured and given an honorable discharge.
Others indicate he was discharged for less than honorable reasons.
Either way he served either less than a year of about a year. His biographies are really all over the place. It would probably be difficult to get a straight story about him.
Another country boy pilot who made a similar observation was P47 Thunderbolt ace Robert S. Johnson. He hailed from Oklahoma and I seem to recall his mentioning in his memoir that bird hunting had helped his shooting enemy planes tremendously. Wish it helped me. I got two shots yesterday on the last day of duck season and missed both...
I have never been bird hunting but those that I know who have say if you can hit a grouse, you can shoot anything.
Thank you for posting this. Audie Murphy’s single-handed stand at Holtzwihr was nothing short of astounding. And what a humble man... his book To Hell and Back did not brag about his medals: he won every one that the Army had to offer - some more than once - and yet, he remained humble while fighting PTSD for many years. Much admiration for this hero.
My parents are of that generation. Still, the “silent” sobriquet is ludicrous given that many were the ringleaders of all that unpleasantness in the ‘60s.
The 340 was barely on the market market in 1971.
It was put on the market in December 1971.
Murphy died in an Aero Commander.
He sadly perished in a plane crash in 1971, in the mountains of Virginia.
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Audie-Murphy-N601JJ.htm
Almost ... it was an Aero-Commander.
Wow, old curmudgeon, I didn’t know that you flew in the area at the same time.
I read in the link I posted a couple of messages up that a 177 crashed the night before in the same area...?
I have spent a lot of time in the past trying to pin this down precisely, and unless you can come up with a good and solid source, we have to assume that he was Airborne.
Many sources credit him with 25 jumps by 1962, and Wikipedia describes him as completing jump training.
There is no question that he was booted out in time.
I don’t remember any other crash at the time.
But that coutry is really rugged. The mountains are not as high as the Rockies but they have their own hazards.
There is a lot of aluminum decorating those mountains, left there by those who “thought they could make it.”
” the ringleaders of all that unpleasantness in the ‘60s.”
—
Yep!
One of my faves is Ted K. He was the biggest troublemaker of them all.
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