The Heroic Stand of Audie Murphy at Holtzwihr

It’s January 26th, 1945. Just after 2:00 PM. The newly appointed company commander, Audie Murphy, and more than three dozen American GIs lay down on the snow-covered ground near the town of Holtzwihr in Alsace, France. In the distance, thundering booms from the German artillery are followed by eerie hissing and deafening concussions as incoming shells pulverize the ground sending shrapnel and frozen earth hurtling through the air.

Tasked with holding an important roadway, unbeknownst to Murphy and crew their reinforcements have been delayed indefinitely. They’re on their own, and things are about to go from bad to worse. Through the smoke Murphy spies more than 200 heavily armed German troops emerging from the woodline just a few hundred yards away, and they have tanks. The only armor the outnumbered and outgunned Americans have is a potent but lightly armored M-10 tank destroyer.

At just 19 years old the native Texan with the movie star face already has two Silver Stars under his belt. Now, faced with lousy odds yet again, he’ll have to lead men 5 and 10 years his senior in battle and maybe to their deaths.

Instead, of ordering them to withdraw to a defensive position to the rear, Murphy stays behind to radio in artillery support, but he’s interrupted when German tankers start opening up on the M-10. In a firestorm of muzzle flashes, whizzing shells, and splintering trees, he watches in exasperation as it takes a direct hit and bursts into a fireball, but he holds his ground and manages to transmit coordinates to the artillery battery miles away.

Then moments later as if by divine intervention, the field between the beleaguered Americans and Germans erupts in a wave of explosions leaving it cratered and shrouded in smoke. But when the barrage stops and the haze clears, the Germans continue their advance once again.

Popping up from his foxhole, Murphy unloads his M-1 carbine at them, then grabs the radio and climbs up onto the smoldering tank destroyer. Filled with high-explosive anti-tank shells, the badly damaged M-10 could detonate at any moment, but it still has a lethal weapon that hasn’t yet been destroyed – a heavy .50 caliber machine gun mounted in an exposed position on top of the turret. Now, clutching the .50 cal’s duel grips in his strong hands, Murphy depresses the thumb-activated trigger sending streams of bullets screaming toward the Germans at nearly 3,000 feet per second.

With the advancing infantry running for cover, he ducks behind the turret and again radios artillery. Oblivious to the enormity of the situation, the officer on the other end asks him how close the Germans are, to which Murphy barks back: “Just hold the phone and I’ll let you talk to one of the bastards!” Again the friendly artillery lights up the field, but the Germans are hell-bent on taking the road and they keep coming.

Scanning the field for more targets, Murphy notices a squad attempting to outflank him on his right – a maneuver they pay for with their lives as he cuts them down with pinpoint fire. As if possessed he continues firing, holding both infantry and tanks at bay, while from behind his astonished men marvel at the scene of valor unfolding before them. The hefty machine gun drones on, barrel smoking, crazed Texan at the controls mowing down the enemy by the dozen, all the while directing artillery fire with deadly accuracy.

German infantrymen, machine gunners, and tankers riddle the smoldering tank destroyer with small arms and tank fire. One exploding tank shell fills Murphy’s leg with shrapnel and nearly throws him to the ground, but he fights on, and it’s only when he’s out of ammo that bloodied, dazed, and exhausted, he limps back to his men leaving a field of carnage out of Dante’s Inferno in his wake.

Murphy later wrote that when it was all said and done one thought kept racing through his mind: “How come I’m not dead?” He’d single-handedly held off the Germans for an hour, all told wounding or killing nearly 50 not counting those who’d fallen to the artillery he’d called in. But even after reaching relative safety with his men, instead of retreating back to regroup, he rallied them to counterattack, and they ultimately drove the Germans back.

For his heroic actions on that day at Holtzwihr, Audie Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor and became a national hero nearly overnight. One of his men who’d witnessed his exploits described it as “the greatest display of guts and courage I have ever seen.” But despite receiving the nation’s highest honor for valor, he disliked being labeled a “hero”. “Bravery is just determination to do a job that you know has to be done,” he said, “and I just fought to stay alive, like anyone else, I guess.”