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castor troy -> RE: 62 Years ago today........... (1/27/2007 2:08:48 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kilowatts
Here's the full citation, yarked from this article on Wikipedia...
quote:
Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions 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. Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to 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. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.
Frontal, WWI style, attacks were much more common than you might think in WWII. After all, to the guy at the sharp end every attack is a frontal attack - there is only one way to cross an open field. The germans did try to infiltrate along ditches but a .50 cal is more than heavy enough to shoot through ditch banks and the weapon would outrange any squad weapons the Germans had. As to whether Murphy killed all those German soldiers; well make your own mind up but here's the facts...
There were two TD's present at the start of the action, both were quickly knocked out. One by the enemy tanks (that's the one who's gun Murphy used), the other ran into a ditch. The second tank apparently did use it's MGs to shoot up the enemy before it crashed.
Murphy had been elevated to company commander the previous night. That's because he was the only officer left in the company after the previous days action which had reduced the company to 19 effectives (Murphy included). Murphy ordered the rest of the company (the other 18 guys) back after the TD's were knocked out.
Then he basically held off the Germans for an hour by himself.
The defensive part of the action concluded when fighters appeared. Murphy had the artillery drop smoke to mark the target for them.
Thanks for the whole story. As I read it itīs more of what I thought of. Killed or wounded were 50. For me thatīs a difference, because like I said if there were 50 killed there would have been probably another 150 wounded and that was a bit too many for me. And itīs exactly the number I was thinking about when saying 200 killed OR wounded divided by 4... voila...
Not to mention the artillery fire... Killing 50 and wounding another 150 with a single .50 alone on a tank without any support was the thing that was "too much" for me. As said, the man was a hero, no doubt, but to read how the fight really was is a difference to the first post about it.
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