Audie Murphy

On this spot on January 26, 1945, a 21 year old Lt. named Audie Murphy, after ordering his men to withdraw, remained behind with his radio and continued to spot for an artillery barrage against advancing German infantry and tanks. As the Germans continued to close in, Murphy remained, calling in new coordinates for the artillery gunners. At one point, the artillery man at the other end told Murphy that he was calling for artillery on his own position. “Where are the Germans?” the soldier asked. Murphy responded, “ hold on a second and I’ll hand one the phone and you can ask him yourself”.

Realizing his position was about to be over run and without regard for his own safety, Murphy climb onto a US tank destroyer that had been disabled and was on fire. He manned the machine gun and fired at the enemy, who were all around him. Murphy remained on the TD firing on the Germans, despite the fact that it could blow up at any second. Murphy’s actions caused the German attack to falter and allowed his Regiment to resume their advance. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

As a Captain in the Army, one of my traveling companions, Joe Eagers, acted as an adviser in the movie, “To Hell and Back” which was about Murphy’s War service and starred Audie Murphy as himself. Joe brought a picture of himself with Murphy discussing a scene on location. Joe and the men in his company acted in the movie as extra’s but Joe claims he didn’t make into the final cut.

Yesterday, we also came across this Citroen, the same model the drove Steve Weiss to safety August 25, 1944.