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Murphy earned a lot of Medals, but I'm guessing you mean his Medal of Honor. Murphy had accepted a battlefield commission and was commanding an infantry company in the 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. He and his men were held up by a network of German machine gun nests. Murphy called for support and two tank destroyers were sent to him. These were tracked vehicles with a large cannon, something like a tank, but unarmored. The enemy opened fire with artillery and destroyed one of the TDs, and the other backed away hastily. Then the Germans sent a large infantry attack at Murphy. Murphy ordered his men to fall back, but remained behind himself to cover their withdrawal. He fired off all his rifle ammunition at the attackers, then climbed on the wrecked, burning tank destroyer and opened fire on the attackers with the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of it. Though wounded Murphy stayed on this burning tank destroyer for an hour, pouring fire into the enemy, who could not locate him, not thinking anyone would be crazy enough to get on the burning vehicle, which might explode any second. The Germans worked their way forward pressing their attack, and Murphy got on the field telephone and called in artillery fire on them. He adjusted the fire of the artillery several times by phone, each time closer to his own location, and finally called in fire on his own position. This artillery barrage finally broke up the German attack.

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15y ago

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