.....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 ...
Hi, I read it here:
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Audie-Murphy-N601JJ.htm
“It was the second crash in the Brush Mountain area within 14 hours. The night prior, a single-engine Cessna 177 carrying four persons, including a noted Roanoke veterinarian and his wife, went down killing all aboard. However, that mishap occurred due to severe pilot inexperience and alcoholic impairment, not the weather.”
I haven’t researched that further ... obviously, the drinking while flying was the cause...
PS - yes, I understand about the terrain there... not a place for the overoptimistic and underskilled.
None of the sources I looked up just doing a Google search credited him with being a paratrooper. I mean none, zilch, zero.
A couple did credit him with entering but not completing training. These bios are short so you should be able to check them easily.
Do math --- or history --- much????
If they were born at the time of the stock market crash of 1929, (not really the beginning of the depression, but just for argument's sake) they would have just be turning 16 years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima.
Now if you want to say they were the bulk of the troops in Korea, I'll go along with you.
As for calling any generation the 'Greatest' -- I think that is nonsense.
I could make the argument right now that our 20-30 year olds fighting the WOT are the 'Greatest' because not one of them was drafted. They are all volunteers. In WWII, 2/3 of the 15 million men who served were draftees, not volunteers.
I am trying to guess who that may have been. Does Joseph ‘Mac’ McConnell ring a bell?
I’m not sure what sort of generational B.S. name that Paul Smith was born in (1969), but Murphy’s heriocs reminded me of Smith’s heroics in the second Gulf War at the airport in Baghdad. I imagine a lot of our perspective is that the MSM (including Tom Brokaw) see WWII as the last “good” war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ray_Smith
“...Smith (13 years of duty) organized the evacuation of the injured M113 crewmen. However, behind the courtyard was a military aid station crowded with 100 combat casualties. To protect it from being overrun, Smith chose to fight on rather than withdraw with the wounded.
...The Iraqis now had the Americans in the courtyard under an intense crossfire. Smith took command of the M113 and ordered a driver to position it so that he could attack both the tower and the trenches [200 Iraqi fighters in the trenches]. He manned the M113’s machine gun, going through three boxes of ammunition. A separate team led by First Sergeant Tim Campbell attacked the tower from the rear, killing the Iraqis. As the battle ended, Smith’s machine gun fell silent. His comrades found him slumped in the turret hatch. His armored vest was peppered with 13 bullet holes...”
Before deploying to Iraq Smith had written to his parents, “There are two ways to come home, stepping off the plane and being carried off the plane. It doesn’t matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.”
Yes, it was Yeager. He said country boys understood equipment and machinery of all kinds so the mechanicals of an airplane were easier for them to understand. As well, they all knew the previously mentioned hunting skills, stalking, leading a shot, etc.
I have also read that they seemed to adapt and understand the 3 dimensional battle that airplanes require vs a land battle that takes place in two dimensions.
>So he was killed by a fool.<
.
So was Chris Kyle.
Be careful of fools.
I have checked, many times.
Wikipedia
“Jimi Hendrix – Musician, completed paratrooper training 1962, discharged soon after.”
Wikipedia “After completing eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord, California, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.[41] He arrived there on November 8, and soon afterward he wrote to his father: “There’s nothing but physical training and harassment here for two weeks, then when you go to jump school ... you get hell. They work you to death, fussing and fighting.”[42] In his next letter home, Hendrix, who had left his guitar at his girlfriend Betty Jean Morgan’s house in Seattle, asked his father to send it to him as soon as possible, stating: “I really need it now.”[42] His father obliged and sent the red Silvertone Danelectro on which Hendrix had hand-painted the words “Betty Jean”, to Fort Campbell.[43] His apparent obsession with the instrument contributed to his neglect of his duties, which led to verbal taunting and physical abuse from his peers, who at least once hid the guitar from him until he had begged for its return.[44]
In November 1961, fellow serviceman Billy Cox walked past an army club and heard Hendrix playing guitar.[45] Intrigued by the proficient playing, which he described as a combination of “John Lee Hooker and Beethoven”, Cox borrowed a bass guitar and the two jammed.[46] Within a few weeks, they began performing at base clubs on the weekends with other musicians in a loosely organized band called the Casuals.[47]
Hendrix completed his paratrooper training in just over eight months, and Major General C.W.G. Rich awarded him the prestigious Screaming Eagles patch on January 11, 1962.”
Daily Express- Jimi Hendrix: the Purple Haze paratrooper
“PRIVATE James Marshall Hendrix made his 25th parachute jump as a member of the US Army’s 101st Airborne division in early 1962.”
Murphy was a war machine, what was described in this thread is just one day’s worth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy#World_War_II_service
Awards
Medal of Honor ribbon.svg Medal of Honor
Distinguished Service Cross ribbon.svg Distinguished Service Cross
Silver Star ribbon.svg Silver Star (2)
Legion of Merit ribbon.svg Legion of Merit
Bronze Star ribbon.svg Bronze Star (2) (1 “V”)
Purple Heart BAR.svg Purple Heart (3)
Army Good Conduct ribbon.svg Good Conduct
Presidential Unit Citation ribbon.svg Presidential Unit Citation (2)
American Campaign Medal ribbon.svg American Campaign
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign ribbon.svg European-Africa-Middle Eastern Campaign (10 campaign) (Arrowhead device)
World War II Victory Medal ribbon.svg WWII Victory
Army of Occupation ribbon.svg Army of Occupation w/Germany clasp
Legion Honneur Chevalier ribbon.svg French Legion of Honor
Croix de guerre 1939-1945 with palm (France) - ribbon bar.png French Croix de Guerre (3)
Croix de Guerre 1940-1945 with palm (Belgium) - ribbon bar.png Belgian Croix de Guerre
Combat Infantry Badge.svg Combat Infantryman Badge
When and why was he discharged?
Didn’t you know who Murphy was before you included him in your list of questionable characters?
His discharge was for a lot of things, including masturbation.
He did 13 months of a 3 year enlistment (not drafted), before being booted at age 19.
Of course I know who Audie Murphy is, he was a fellow Texan and I served in one of his divisions, the Texas 36th.
If you confused him with John McCain and Jimi Hendrix, that is your problem, I don’t confuse them as being the same.
He died on the mountain that I live on.
You are more than confused.
"He (Murphy)is of the same generation as Jimi Hendrix, Jane Fonda, John McCain, The Beatles, Elvis, The Chicago Seven, Janis Joplin, Bob Seeger, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison and most all of the youth leaders of the 1960s that you can name." -Ansell2
Right, a generation, you belong to a generation, we all do.
He was revered in England when I grew up particularly by my grandad who fought with Montgomery in British 8th Army. I remember watching Shane with my grandad when I was a kid and how he told that Audie Murphy killed hundreds of ‘Gerries’ in the War...
I cried at the end of that film!
Maybe, but it is extremely unwise to include Murphy with a drugie generation. Are those your hero’s?
My dad was born in 1930 and joined the Navy at 17 in 1947.
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