Audie Murphy - The Most Decorated Combat Soldier of WW2

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Speaker 4 Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts because because this is the internet, and that's how it works now.

Speaker 4 I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be leading the charge tonight, but I'll need some grunts to hop to with me. First up, the two most decorated members of the podcast by Blowing Locks Alone, Cecil and Noah.

Speaker 5 Probably not the only time this episode you'll hear hair comments on.

Speaker 6 It is forcing anybody to go after Cecil in a battle of wordplay is cruel, Eli. You just do it as Noah and Cecil next.

Speaker 4 And also joining us tonight are two red badges of courage, Heath and Todd.

Speaker 12 That's a book.

Speaker 13 I knew that.

Speaker 13 I read books.

Speaker 14 In combat, not so much a red badge of courage as like a brown stain of fear, but sure.

Speaker 15 That's very good.

Speaker 4 Before we begin tonight, I'd like to thank our patrons. Patrons, just a dollar a week, you dive onto the grenade of poverty

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Speaker 4 And with that out of the way, tell us, Tom, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today?

Speaker 14 Today, we will be talking about the most decorated U.S.

Speaker 19 combat soldier, Audi Murphy.

Speaker 4 And Cecil, why Audi Murphy?

Speaker 22 Well, today I want to talk about a guy that killed 240 Nazis, and I have no ulterior motives for it.

Speaker 23 Zero.

Speaker 25 Audi Murphy was born in a small town in Northeast Texas.

Speaker 22 His family had 12 kids, and he was number seven.

Speaker 27 His parents were white sharecroppers, so a pretty poor upbringing.

Speaker 4 Second only to Cecil.

Speaker 30 How many refinery expenses did he survive?

Speaker 25 They also say in the Wikipedia entry that he had a pretty bad temper as a kid and also had mood swings.

Speaker 26 His father sort of phased in and out of his family for several years and then just finally fell out completely. So at the age of 10-ish years, he drops out of school and he gets a job.

Speaker 6 I feel like it's weird to include his nine-year-old temperament in his bio, right?

Speaker 39 It's relevant.

Speaker 14 Okay, but mad respect to a nine-year-old with a temper so severe it makes his way.

Speaker 32 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 40 100 years later.

Speaker 37 He gets a job picking cotton at a whopping $1 a day.

Speaker 11 Now, in 2025, money, that's $23 whole dollars a day, or a little over three hours of 2025 federal minimum wage.

Speaker 13 God, unless you're a tipped employee, in which case it's way less.

Speaker 8 He also, at this age, starts hunting to help feed his family.

Speaker 26 They mention it here that he became skilled with a rifle and pin in that for some Nazi killing later.

Speaker 41 At the age of 16 in 1941, his mother died of pneumonia.

Speaker 4 Hold still, Ma. What part of your lungs do you feel the worst in?

Speaker 46 December of 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II.

Speaker 11 Audi tried to get in the service.

Speaker 12 He was pretty late.

Speaker 12 He was a little slow.

Speaker 49 He tried to get in the service.

Speaker 38 By the application trifecta, he applied to the Army, the Navy, and the Marines. And all three rejected him because, one, he was too young.

Speaker 34 And two, he was underweight.

Speaker 47 His sister provided the Army recruitment with a falsified birth certificate and said he was a year older than he actually was and he was accepted into the army in june of 1942.

Speaker 6 He comes back and he's like, actually, I was born earlier now.

Speaker 40 Remembering.

Speaker 4 You know what?

Speaker 40 I remembered.

Speaker 11 This is just crossed off.

Speaker 32 This is just,

Speaker 14 you just wrote an ex you know what?

Speaker 40 Welcome in.

Speaker 20 Welcome in.

Speaker 36 What number did I say?

Speaker 56 Somehow he gained weight too.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 52 He must have missed the part where he was like, well, you know, you were too young and you were underweight, but now you're just old enough and underweight. So you can get it.

Speaker 58 Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 6 He's got rocks in his pockets. Yeah.

Speaker 25 Well, anyway, he goes through basic training and is given a marksmanship badge and an expert badge for his sweet bayonet skills.

Speaker 40 Bayonet skills?

Speaker 15 That's just

Speaker 13 fucking stabbing, right?

Speaker 40 He was really good at stabbing?

Speaker 55 He was expert,

Speaker 40 man.

Speaker 28 He got a fucking bayonet.

Speaker 14 Aren't you kind of worried about the guys in the company who didn't earn that merit badge?

Speaker 9 Like,

Speaker 9 god damn it, Phil.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Bill, it's the pointy end.

Speaker 28 You want them to line up in front of you.

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Okay, so I know this happens a lot in shit, but it's got to be really depressing to get the rejection letter when the job you're applying for is stand in front of the bullets for you, right?

Speaker 26 Yeah, but he was underweight, so he didn't catch a lot of bullets.

Speaker 26 He joined the Mediterranean theater in February of 1942, and he started out as a platoon messenger, and he was promoted twice in two months, private first class in May and corporal in July.

Speaker 53 He gets upgraded from platoon messenger to division runner, which sounds like a bigger job for the same pay.

Speaker 25 In 1943, he participated in Operation Avalanche, which is when the Allies landed in southwestern Italy.

Speaker 38 He had been in combat before and he had killed two fleeing Italians in Sicily, but this is where things get a little more intense.

Speaker 14 Ah yes, start the story with a celebration of the bravery of shooting men in the back.

Speaker 18 Yeah, no, it's going to get more intense than that, though, Tom.

Speaker 30 Don't worry,

Speaker 13 yeah, but like Italian Nazis, I'm cool with it.

Speaker 17 Thank you. Yes, Italians.

Speaker 55 Racist.

Speaker 40 You don't do that to German people.

Speaker 20 Garlic-scented Nazi.

Speaker 26 He was in a scouting party near a river, and he and two other soldiers were ambushed by Nazis. One of the soldiers he's with goes down right away to machine gun fire.

Speaker 22 Murphy and the other soldier fight back, killing five Nazis with grenades and some machine gun fire for good measure.

Speaker 64 A month later, Murphy is in another battle.

Speaker 8 This time, his fellow soldiers fought off an attack of seven Nazis, killing four of them and taking three prisoners.

Speaker 52 At this point, he's promoted again to staff sergeant.

Speaker 8 After his promotion, Murphy gets malaria and is put in the hospital.

Speaker 38 He stays only eight days and rejoins the fight.

Speaker 22 A few days later, he's promoted to platoon sergeant.

Speaker 6 Valier, you know the war is going great for your size when surviving malaria earns you a promotion.

Speaker 14 Okay, but I feel like not surviving is at least a de facto desertion, right?

Speaker 26 In March of that year, he and his platoon were taking shelter during a rainstorm in a farmhouse.

Speaker 35 The house stood on a small hill that allowed the occupants to see a vital nearby road.

Speaker 38 While there, a column of 20 Nazi tanks just slowly rides by like they own the place, but they didn't realize that Murphy and his platoon had placed mines on the road the night before.

Speaker 25 Now, Murphy is like a kid that can't wait till Christmas to unwrap his presence.

Speaker 26 So he decides to use what they call a land line.

Speaker 67 Now, this is a phone that uses a wire to connect to another phone.

Speaker 42 It's wild stuff.

Speaker 25 He uses that phone to call in an airstrike on the column of tanks.

Speaker 13 Okay, when you said unwrap his presence, I thought it was going to be like

Speaker 7 a skin plane.

Speaker 32 I like what it is.

Speaker 25 The first airstrike was off target, but Murphy was still on the line with the artillery and gave him an adjustment.

Speaker 38 Second barrage hit and disabled the first tank on the road, and the rest just slowly five-point turned out of there and went back down the road they came from.

Speaker 35 Murphy was tasked with finishing off the disabled tank.

Speaker 19 He crawled in the mud.

Speaker 26 up until he was about 15 meters away and then decided to throw some Molotov cocktails onto the tank.

Speaker 37 But neither two that he threw ignited.

Speaker 38 So he crawled up to the tank, opened the hatch, threw a grenade down inside, and of course it exploded.

Speaker 11 You'd think that motherfucker would be locked, right?

Speaker 9 Why can't I keep it locked?

Speaker 14 There was a time we thought that about cocktails, too.

Speaker 53 The enemy that was nearby opened fire on Murphy.

Speaker 63 who then responded by sprinting away and firing six grenades from the grenade launcher at the Nazis and their tank.

Speaker 33 He blew off the treads of the tank and was able to get to safety.

Speaker 71 Hey, Audi, you're back.

Speaker 4 You done

Speaker 4 fist fighting that tank or whatever?

Speaker 58 I ate your beans.

Speaker 23 I ate your beans.

Speaker 4 It seemed like you were doing it alone, so.

Speaker 35 He received the bronze star with the V device.

Speaker 26 V device means he not only got a bronze star for heroism, but he got a V for valor.

Speaker 35 He gets a few more medals, a second bronze star with an oak leaf cluster and an infantryman badge.

Speaker 53 He didn't get these for a particular mission, just sort of a way to recognize a bunch of things he did while he was on patrol.

Speaker 35 Shortly after, he winds up getting malaria again and is hospitalized again before going off to the south of France.

Speaker 4 Doctor's like, for the last time, Audi, we're not willing to throw a grenade down there to flush up.

Speaker 6 You would expect that at this point, even the mosquitoes would know better than to fuck with him, but apparently not.

Speaker 62 Get this guy a gin and tonic or something.

Speaker 40 Come on.

Speaker 53 In August of 1944, Murphy and his platoon were making their way through a vineyard in France and they got ambushed by Nazis.

Speaker 25 Murphy tells his troops to stay in cover and he takes his M1 carbine and splits from the platoon.

Speaker 26 Murphy killed two of the Germans that were coming down toward him from the top of the hill.

Speaker 43 He's under heavy fire and he wounds another German and he engages with another group in a foxhole nearby.

Speaker 27 He runs out of ammunition at this point, goes back to where his troops are, and takes a machine gun from the soldiers.

Speaker 35 Then he heads back up and fires on these foxholes, but then he runs out of ammo again.

Speaker 60 Okay, where's everybody else?

Speaker 40 Are they doing a wine tasting? Can you help kill the Nazis?

Speaker 14 We're good. You got this, hey, guys.

Speaker 9 Exactly. Let me know if you mean that would save me some.

Speaker 48 Awesome.

Speaker 73 Oh, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 41 He goes back down.

Speaker 62 Sounded ingenuine.

Speaker 8 He goes back down the hill to get his carbine, and his best friend, Laddie Timpton, convinces him to let him come along.

Speaker 12 Dude, you're hogging all the war.

Speaker 69 Come on.

Speaker 26 They fight their way back up the hill, throwing some grenades, and Tipton gets part of his ear shot off, but they manage to destroy a machine gun placement.

Speaker 50 At this point, two Nazis come out of a nearby house, and they look like they're trying to surrender.

Speaker 5 Tipton goes to take them prisoner and they shoot and kill him.

Speaker 35 So Murphy, still detached from the group, throws several grenades, opens fire on the house, makes it to the machine gun placement and takes their machine gun.

Speaker 32 They return fire, but Audi keeps moving towards the house.

Speaker 59 He keeps moving toward the house, killing six Nazis and wounding two with their gun.

Speaker 14 Okay, you're just saying Wolfenstein 3D out loud.

Speaker 23 That's all you're saying.

Speaker 76 The 11 inside the house that are left alive, they decide it's better to actually surrender this time.

Speaker 26 So he takes them

Speaker 32 shit.

Speaker 25 His platoon takes the area.

Speaker 77 He's individually awarded the distinguished

Speaker 49 service cross.

Speaker 26 And his regiment gets the presidential unit citation.

Speaker 69 Yay, we did it together.

Speaker 9 Ross and Audi.

Speaker 9 Better be some fun before go left.

Speaker 71 All right.

Speaker 4 Well, I don't know about you guys, but I've straight up got a Ram boner.

Speaker 78 So while I take a cold shower, we'll take a quick break.

Speaker 7 Rambo of Nothing.

Speaker 28 Rambo is a movie about a guy who cares.

Speaker 40 Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.

Speaker 6 I'm telling you, man, it's when she comes from Alabami.

Speaker 33 What's Alabami?

Speaker 44 That's not even a place, man.

Speaker 6 It's an expression, though, Chris.

Speaker 14 You guys.

Speaker 12 Hey. Hey, Audi.

Speaker 13 How's it going, man?

Speaker 14 I'll tell you how it's going. I'm fresh from the kill.

Speaker 57 He's eye-frolling again.

Speaker 28 You can just, like, walk, man.

Speaker 14 No time. Heard enemy movement on the ridge, so we'll check it out.
You're in Dias of Plato and Nazi Tanks, Squadron, 33 men.

Speaker 20 Oh, yeah?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I killed two with Betsy. Ha, which meant I could get behind their line Betsy.

Speaker 14 It's what he calls the knife right right the knife Yeah, encouraged the tank took out two hostiles swung her around open fire on the platoon cleaned up the stragglers by hand, you know 44 of them in all counted.

Speaker 18 Oh, you're done.

Speaker 6 Yeah, great job man.

Speaker 40 Great job Yeah, only a day's work.

Speaker 56 Hey Audi settle a bet for us.

Speaker 67 Are the lyrics to she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes from Alabama or is it I don't know any any songs.

Speaker 57 Just a song of battle. Song of Battle, got it.

Speaker 12 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I'm going to go look for some more people to kill. You do that, Audi.

Speaker 32 You do that.

Speaker 3 And there's the dive roll.

Speaker 64 I'm going to eat your beans, okay?

Speaker 3 Hey, podcast listener.

Speaker 13 I'm Heath Enright.

Speaker 20 And I'm Tom Curry.

Speaker 13 You know, we have some fun here on Citation Eight about how busy Tom can be, but more folks are pressed for time than ever before.

Speaker 14 Pro tip, I only poop when I sleep now.

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Speaker 28 Now, can I talk about slooping?

Speaker 13 It's deeply important to me that you don't.

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Speaker 55 I don't think I am.

Speaker 1 Heads up, California. There's a statewide special election November 4th.
Active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot that they can return at a drop-off location in person or by mail.

Speaker 1 Rest assured, your vote is secure. You can even sign up to track your ballot.
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Speaker 40 And we're back.

Speaker 4 When we left off, the killing machine was just revving up.

Speaker 36 What happened? So true, too.

Speaker 49 This gets worse.

Speaker 56 All right.

Speaker 15 Murphy got his silver star in October of 1944.

Speaker 37 It took the slacker long enough.

Speaker 26 He was with his platoon in the eastern part of France, just southwest of Strasbourg.

Speaker 25 There was a very steep hill with lots of passageways carved out of the side of it.

Speaker 26 There was also a network of tunnels that worked their way up the side of this hill.

Speaker 25 The Nazis were dug in with machine guns and could move pretty quickly from point to point up the side of the hill while they were still in cover.

Speaker 26 There was a group of machine gunners and snipers stopping the advance of the Allied troops.

Speaker 25 A couple of colonels and a captain, along with some other troops, decided to visit the front lines that day.

Speaker 21 So the group, rejecting the advice of Murphy, decided to go up the side of the hill to see if they could find the places where the Germans were shooting from.

Speaker 6 Oh, for fuck. So you say that people are getting shot when they stand right here doing exactly this?

Speaker 34 Murphy decides to go up as well, just a little bit to the right.

Speaker 25 He does this without their knowledge.

Speaker 68 He's about 25 yards from them, shadowing their movements as they climb this hill.

Speaker 51 Well, when you know it, the Nazis let him pass and then open fire on their position.

Speaker 74 The group of officers and soldiers are pinned down in an area where they really can't move.

Speaker 54 While they're just barely out of the line of fire, they're basically a great target for an eventual grenade.

Speaker 14 Okay, I do have to say, the sheer volume of grenades in this story vastly exceeded my

Speaker 32 grenade. It seems like he has a lot.

Speaker 40 it's just all grenades, just backpacks.

Speaker 12 Does he look grandolier of that sort?

Speaker 50 Murphy, from behind his boulder nearby, calls out to them, telling them to remain calm and that he is on it.

Speaker 81 Hey, idiots, you didn't see this very large boulder in this fucking open field.

Speaker 60 You just went into the open field.

Speaker 81 All right, whatever. Just relax.

Speaker 60 I got this on my own.

Speaker 28 It's cool.

Speaker 32 So he jumps.

Speaker 10 I'm doing slow-mo.

Speaker 51 He jumps out from behind the boulder with his M1 carbine in one hand and a grenade in the other.

Speaker 14 He's still doing jazz here. He

Speaker 61 surprises the machine gun crew that was firing on the other soldiers and they pivot to shoot at him.

Speaker 63 But they catch the barrel on some brush and they miss Murphy, but just barely.

Speaker 38 Murphy, taking advantage of the barrel getting stuck in the brush.

Speaker 18 Nope, I planned that.

Speaker 10 I planned that.

Speaker 65 He throws the grenade and he opens fire.

Speaker 75 Before the grenade lands, he kills two of the Germans with shots to the stomach.

Speaker 58 Before it lands. The grenade.

Speaker 32 That's what the account said.

Speaker 40 The graphic. The classic snowball trick.

Speaker 75 Maybe, Tom, maybe he threw it up really high and their eyes went up like a dog.

Speaker 36 Look at it.

Speaker 23 And then he's like,

Speaker 40 yeah.

Speaker 28 Oh, it's a pop-up.

Speaker 10 It's a pop-up.

Speaker 12 The grenade goes off and Murphy throws off two more and he continues firing.

Speaker 67 He kills four Nazis that were in the foxhole, wounds three of them, and the one that got up to run away was shot down as he fled.

Speaker 13 Okay, so apparently, like everything I made up in slow motion as a kid playing with toy dunks, this guy actually

Speaker 7 in real life.

Speaker 10 That's awesome.

Speaker 6 It is so hard to picture any of this shit without him going pew, pew, as he does all of it, right?

Speaker 25 Three days later, he's walking down a creekbed nearby.

Speaker 5 Along the side of the creek, in a concealed position, a group of Germans open fire on him and his platoon.

Speaker 26 The Nazis immediately kill seven of his 27 men as they run for cover.

Speaker 38 Murphy calls to his soldiers behind him to take cover and he tries to assess where the enemy is located.

Speaker 25 He starts moving with the six men in tow and a machine gun starts firing on them and kills or wounds four men before they can make it to different cover.

Speaker 41 So while they're being fired at by the enemy, he and his men take out their entrenching tools and while lying on their backs, just dig out shallow depressions.

Speaker 38 Sorry, make a dirt angel?

Speaker 36 Is that what the sentence of make a dirt angel?

Speaker 4 Wow, I'm getting shot at right now.

Speaker 13 Shallow

Speaker 13 impression sentence.

Speaker 6 That's an impression.

Speaker 18 If he'd said impression, that joke would have really killed, but that's well, depression and maybe depression are similar.

Speaker 3 Two different words.

Speaker 71 Don't kill Natalie Wood.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 18 Which stole all the cocaine.

Speaker 7 When the men are

Speaker 46 when the men are quasi-safe in their freshly dug foxholes slash shallow graves, Murphy decided to move forward on his own to see if he could find out where the enemy was shooting from.

Speaker 24 So he belly crawls in the mud, hiding in every slight hole he can find to try to stay out of sight of the gunners.

Speaker 26 He gets about 50 yards closer and is able to see the foxhole that the German snipers are in.

Speaker 7 They're about 200 yards from him and he's able to kill two of the snipers from this position and then get on a walkie-talkie and direct mortar rounds onto the rest of the Germans where they're at from his location.

Speaker 24 Some remaining Nazis tried to run for it, but they were killed as they fled.

Speaker 26 And this is how he got his second Silver Star.

Speaker 3 Motherfucker's going to have a whole constellation by the end of this match.

Speaker 4 But at this point, you're slowing down his crawling, and he does a lot of crawling.

Speaker 30 I feel like that's true.

Speaker 14 Next season, we're going to learn that the A-bomb we dropped in Japan was just Audi Murder.

Speaker 58 That's why they call me Lilmo.

Speaker 28 And they took his gun away and gave him Wolverine claws. Yeah.

Speaker 26 Now, before I tell you about how he gets his Medal of Honor, I should tell you about how he got his three purple hearts.

Speaker 66 The first one was in September of 1944.

Speaker 25 He was on his way to battalion headquarters when he met a group of new soldiers.

Speaker 54 He stopped to talk to them.

Speaker 7 And as he did, a mortar shell landed literally between his feet.

Speaker 79 Murphy is thrown through the air, knocked unconscious, but the men he was having a conversation with all died.

Speaker 26 I guess being at the epicenter of the explosion is the best place to be when you're hit by a mortar, as the shrapnel isn't going to

Speaker 33 cut your legs and blow your heel off your boot instead of penetrating your head and neck area, which are pretty vital.

Speaker 18 Oh, wow.

Speaker 4 Guys, it's basic karate.

Speaker 73 You got to get inside. You're all dead.

Speaker 40 You're all dead.

Speaker 13 I was going to say inside the guard.

Speaker 14 Yeah, Audi Murphy somehow submitted a mortar shell.

Speaker 14 It only taps once and it is very pronounced.

Speaker 33 It's just Steven Segal using the back of his hand to move the mortar shell away from him.

Speaker 68 Just pushes it away.

Speaker 26 Second Purple Heart injury was next month.

Speaker 25 He was moving behind a friendly barrage of artillery when a group of German snipers that were camouflaged and in the forest opened fire.

Speaker 54 Murphy dove for cover behind a tree, but a shot from the second sniper bounced off a tree trunk and it hit him in his hip.

Speaker 42 His radio operator was not so lucky and he got shot above his left eye, killing him.

Speaker 79 As Murphy fell, he dove to the ground and his helmet came off and it rolled a few yards away.

Speaker 59 The German sees the helmet in the bush and he thinks it's attached to someone's head.

Speaker 54 So he tosses off some of the camouflage cover to get a better shot.

Speaker 28 As the Nazi is shooting at the unoccupied helmet, Murphy raises up his gun like a pistol and he shoots

Speaker 32 right between the eyes.

Speaker 49 That's what the accounts say.

Speaker 32 That's what the accounts say.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Honestly, based on the story so far, I'm surprised he didn't hit the bullet back at him like a pickleball, right?

Speaker 40 With a curve on it.

Speaker 14 I'm sorry, why did we send anyone else to this war at all? Like, there should just be fucking this guy and a cook, and that's the LIB.

Speaker 20 That's it.

Speaker 77 This guy, a cook, and a guy to hold up his like WWE belt and walk into the ring with him.

Speaker 14 Someone's got to carry his balls around too, I guess.

Speaker 71 Jesus.

Speaker 26 When he's mede-vaced out of there, he isn't able to get to a hospital for a few days, and he develops gangrene and he throws a grenade

Speaker 26 kind of he has to spend several weeks at the hospital as they remove the infection and several large pieces of his butt he goes back to action and he gets wounded again on january 25th 1945.

Speaker 13 okay you know he's showing off the missing ass chunks all the time

Speaker 45 right

Speaker 6 Yeah, his version of the Jaws scene is very uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 It's really uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Speaker 25 He puts him in a jar and it's now the Battle of Murphy's ass, you know, and he carries it out.

Speaker 24 His group is hit with a heavy mortar barrage, and several people are killed, but Murphy survives it with superficial wounds.

Speaker 41 I guess the mortar that hit near him didn't explode the way it should have.

Speaker 25 Instead of producing like a, a big, a few big chunks of shrapnel, it was like a fine cloud of splinters.

Speaker 26 So his left leg got sprayed with these, and he used his field kit to clean out what he could.

Speaker 32 Sure.

Speaker 13 Okay, definitely a hero, but at this point, I don't want him anywhere near my fucking book dude.

Speaker 11 He's like a Nazi mortar magnet, just constantly, right?

Speaker 51 It's true.

Speaker 53 The next day, the Germans counterattack the Allies in the area and try to take back the wooded section with two companies of soldiers and six heavy tanks.

Speaker 65 Now, the one thing that this group didn't know is that the commander of the line they're assaulting is none other than Audi Murphy, who took command of this area earlier in the day when the commanding officer was wounded in the fight.

Speaker 26 His defending group has two M10 tank destroyers with it, which is just the name of a tank we had.

Speaker 52 It had a 50 caliber machine gun on it, and it had an anti-tank weapon on it, but it wasn't really all that special.

Speaker 4 Oh, I'm sorry, Cecil, is your concern that we were going to write off this story because the machine gun did all the work?

Speaker 40 Like, it's okay.

Speaker 44 I mean, it's not so special because the Germans, when they attacked, they immediately took out the tanks in short order.

Speaker 43 Germans basically climbed over everything in their way with troops and tanks closing in on the Allied forces.

Speaker 54 Murphy orders his units to retreat, but he stays there on the phone with the artillery forces and he directs their fire, which starts taking out Nazis and the troops on the line.

Speaker 26 He sees that he has a chance to make it to one of the disabled tanks.

Speaker 5 So he takes this chance and he runs for it.

Speaker 11 And he punches the tank right in its tank balls.

Speaker 38 He makes it to the now flaming M10 and he climbs on top of it.

Speaker 32 Oh, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 60 He mans the 50 caliber machine gun and he opens up on the German soldiers.

Speaker 26 In between bursts of machine guns,

Speaker 18 he rides a motorcycle and then jumps off of it and like

Speaker 60 lands inside of a tank at the machine gun.

Speaker 76 In between bursts of the machine gun fire, he's on the phone with the artillery people directing mortars into the Germans.

Speaker 35 At some point, either the telephone stops working or the line is cut, which also makes the telephone stop working.

Speaker 79 But that doesn't stop Murphy, who stays on top of the tank, firing round after round and then stopping to reload belts of ammo into the gun.

Speaker 4 Artillery, I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to let you go.
I'm doing that crazy screaming machine gun thing.

Speaker 73 Yeah, exactly. You understand me.

Speaker 32 Thank you so much.

Speaker 73 Nice. Okay.
Yeah, I will talk to you guys later.

Speaker 28 Can you eat your beat?

Speaker 7 Bye-bye.

Speaker 38 now the germans aren't sure where he is there's a tank that's on fire and i guess they can't see what's up there because of this line quote fortunately the germans were having a difficult time locating the source of the murderous fire being poured on them end quote I think it's over here.

Speaker 14 I'm dead.

Speaker 18 No, I didn't tell anybody.

Speaker 7 I should have.

Speaker 74 While he's unloading with this machine gun, his location is hit not once, but twice with artillery rounds.

Speaker 43 Now, the rounds don't kill him or hurt him that much.

Speaker 32 Count says that

Speaker 78 at most, he was stunned for a few moments before he would open up fire again.

Speaker 38 Come on.

Speaker 26 Also, at some point, the wound from the day before in his leg opens up, but he keeps firing.

Speaker 68 Okay, it's like a guitar player's fingers with this guy, but for bombs and your whole body, he has calluses.

Speaker 45 Right, right.

Speaker 6 It would have been weird if he's like, oh, fuck, the wound from yesterday opened up.

Speaker 6 I have to call this guy.

Speaker 40 Time out.

Speaker 29 Time out.

Speaker 78 Don't worry.

Speaker 13 I'm just going to put a capo on my entire fucking body.

Speaker 40 I'll be true.

Speaker 14 I will say, though, that 50-caliber invisibility cloak came in handier than anybody probably thought.

Speaker 74 Now, he's killing scores of Nazis at this point.

Speaker 38 One group looks to be making their way to him, crawling in a ditch, getting close, but he notices them, opens fire, and kills them all.

Speaker 61 After some time, the Nazi tanks fuck off, start retreating, and they, and so do the rest of the, the, the people with them.

Speaker 14 I guess this guy's fucking crazy, man.

Speaker 60 We got to get out of here.

Speaker 70 Well, the tanks, they really needed ground troops nearby to protect them.

Speaker 77 When the most of those people get killed, the troops, all the troops fell back.

Speaker 63 So, Murphy, after seeing them leave, stops firing, climbs down from the tank.

Speaker 38 The tank is full of fuel and ammunition, and he was just on top, standing there and firing the gun.

Speaker 33 But he, it waited until he was off it and walking away for it to explode.

Speaker 6 It probably exploded in slow motion for him.

Speaker 18 You know he flicked a cigarette over his car

Speaker 42 to like a sweet guitar lick, too, for sure.

Speaker 54 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 46 Murphy.

Speaker 34 Murphy refused medical aid, rounded up the troops, and pressed a counterattack.

Speaker 4 Sorry, come with you?

Speaker 4 Honestly, man, feels like you got this.

Speaker 55 It's on you.

Speaker 14 Can you imagine how demoralizing it had to be later when the Nazis found out they lost a whole ass battle to one guy?

Speaker 32 Right.

Speaker 14 Look, dude.

Speaker 26 Murphy was moved from the front lines to regimental headquarters after this, and he received the Medal of Honor.

Speaker 41 When he came home, he struggled with sleeping pill addiction and what they called battle fatigue.

Speaker 19 He had headaches, vomiting, and nightmares.

Speaker 47 He slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow.

Speaker 25 His first wife claimed that once he held her at gunpoint while he was suffering from the disorder.

Speaker 53 I guess he was in a lot of violent altercations in his adult life. One time threatening a dog trainer and charged with battery and assault with intent to commit murder.

Speaker 26 And he was eventually cleared of all those charges.

Speaker 4 Hey, Cecil, can I speak to you over here for a second? We were all having a lot of fun when the guy was standing on the tank firing the machine gun and you're kind of bringing it down.

Speaker 55 I'm sorry. I didn't want to

Speaker 57 post-traumatic stress disorder. Hey, I'm just going to pop into the little whisper area.

Speaker 13 Hey,

Speaker 13 yeah, so you got to kill a lot more Nazis if you're going to fuck with a dog trainer because I feel like that's

Speaker 58 the thing you get in you and you endanger a dog.

Speaker 4 I need you to kill at least an area of Berlin.

Speaker 26 He eventually used his fame to speak out about PTSD and called on the government to do more to help soldiers struggling with this disorder and to give benefits to vets that were suffering from it.

Speaker 68 In fact, a few months after he died, they named a VA hospital after him.

Speaker 11 We figured he'd like a whole building full of the problems in remembering my

Speaker 6 well, it does seem appropriate to name something after him that kills a lot of soldiers though

Speaker 64 he also had a movie career he started acting in 1948 he worked in films until i feel like a lot of people he just showed up on set and no one would say no right

Speaker 33 yeah okay yeah he worked until 1969 in movies and film and then on tv and film and then

Speaker 26 he was in a version of the Red Badge of Courage, a bunch of Westerns, and he eventually was convinced to play himself in a film recreating his war exploits.

Speaker 27 The film Helenback was, quote, the biggest hit in the history of Universal Studios at the time, end quote.

Speaker 6 And that nice guys, we got that PTSD victim to relive his trauma for our entertainment.

Speaker 14 Yeah, also, I think he killed at least one production assistant, and he's hogging a whole craft services table, the whole thing.

Speaker 13 I feel like if he's in Red Badge of Courage, he's playing Henry Fleming, and he's like, no, not retreating. And they're like,

Speaker 30 okay, that's like a big part of the fucking book.

Speaker 60 Yeah, no, it's fine. You have grenades.
You have grenades.

Speaker 58 I have no grenade.

Speaker 71 I think you brought those from home.

Speaker 24 He died at the age of 45 when a private plane he was a passenger on crashed.

Speaker 26 into a mountain in Virginia and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Speaker 4 All right, Cecil. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be?

Speaker 41 This story might have convinced me to believe in the lucky Irish if I didn't know Tom.

Speaker 11 It's true, Tom. This is where all your luck went.

Speaker 58 God damn it.

Speaker 11 Hardy took it.

Speaker 9 Son of a bitch.

Speaker 4 Are you ready for the quiz?

Speaker 37 Take your best shot.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 13 So it's time to melt out Audi Murphy like demolition man.

Speaker 12 Yep. I didn't have a question.

Speaker 56 No, it's not.

Speaker 32 And I'm agreeing. Yes.
Hey, yes.

Speaker 13 A great idea.

Speaker 15 Great idea.

Speaker 40 Hey, Cheers. All right, Ed.

Speaker 13 Let's murder some Nazis.

Speaker 6 More of a traditional question for you here, Cecil. What was the tagline for his movie?

Speaker 30 A,

Speaker 18 get ready for a Hitler hit and hit of the summer.

Speaker 6 B, the German sphere is audible.

Speaker 23 C,

Speaker 6 get all the gritty PTS details.

Speaker 6 Or D, as certain we are that Americans will always remember that Nazis are the unequivocal bad guys and that fascism is bad regardless of how hard you own your purple-haired niece with it.

Speaker 6 Here's yet another movie that emphasizes this point. They all will for the next 90 goddamn years.
Hopefully you guys don't fuck it up.

Speaker 55 Oh,

Speaker 24 I think you're pushing a little hard for D there.

Speaker 36 I think it's D.

Speaker 10 It was D.

Speaker 14 Audi Murphy was certainly inspiring and heroic, but where else does his legacy live on?

Speaker 14 Hey, in every Chuck Norris joke, all of which are just toned-down autobiographical details from Audi Murphy's life.

Speaker 76 Let me stop you there, Tom.

Speaker 61 All I need is A.

Speaker 38 It's A.

Speaker 36 That's it. Yeah.

Speaker 13 Hey, Tom, can you join me over here for a second? I did the one just A thing.

Speaker 64 That's all I ever do.

Speaker 30 It's kind of Tom's stuff. I mean, really, you're standing on Tom's stuff.

Speaker 4 Heath and Tom couldn't agree who got to do the one-answer joke this week, so Noah wins.

Speaker 18 No, wait, Tom wins.

Speaker 20 All right, uh, Noah, you should write an essay.

Speaker 6 I should.

Speaker 4 All right, well, for Noah, Heath, Cecil, and Tom, I'm Eli Bosnick. Thank you for hanging out with us today.
We'll be back next week, and by then, Noah will be an expert on something else.

Speaker 4 Between now and then, you can listen to Cecil's brand new podcast, The Show Rogan, No Sperius, that he did not ask me to be a part of, wherever you bet your podcasts that hurt people's feelings.

Speaker 55 And

Speaker 4 you'd like to keep this show going, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash citationpod or give us a five-star review everywhere you can.

Speaker 4 And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com.

Speaker 62 And with this medal, we award you the 21-gun salute.

Speaker 10 Enemy fire!

Speaker 13 Oh, there he goes.

Speaker 14 I'm 17.

Speaker 12 Yeah, you are.

Speaker 45 Yep.

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