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June 2, 2025: Audie Murphy
Howdy folks, it’s the first week of June 2025, and welcome to This Week in The West.
I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.
There he was, all five feet, five inches of him, standing on top of a burning tank destroyer in Eastern France in January 1945, all alone with German troops closing in on three sides.
What young Audie Murphy did next transformed him from just another undersized second lieutenant from Texas into a giant of American heroism and eventually one of the country’s favorite movie cowboys.
We remember him this week, on the 80th Anniversary of his recommendation for the Medal of Honor, June 2, 1945.
Murphy was only 19 when his Company was attacked by six German tanks and waves of infantry. He ordered his men to withdrawal and jumped on the smoldering tank destroyer, first directing artillery against the enemy before grabbing the vehicle’s 50 caliber machinegun and turning it against the Nazis.
The Germans threw everything at him, getting as close as 10 yards away, but Murphy gave up no ground and safely returned to his men. Despite being wounded, he would go back, leading a successful counterattack.
His gallantry that day earned him the Medal of Honor. He was the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II and has been described as the most highly decorated enlisted soldier in U.S. history.
Historian Rick Atkinson wrote: “A fifth-grade dropout, he had picked cotton, worked in a filling station and fixed radios. Until enlisting, he had never been a hundred miles from the four-room shack in Hunt County, Texas, that housed eleven children. The Army had issued him a uniform six inches too long in the sleeves and tried to make him a cook. In basic training, he balked at buying GI insurance because “I don’t intend to get killed anyway, and it costs pretty high.”
Murphy was born in 1925 in rural Texas. When he returned home as a 20-year-old, he was a reluctant hero whose fame had already begun to grow.
His face graced the cover of a July 1945 issue of Life Magazine, sparking the interest of legendary Hollywood actor James Cagney. Cagney invited Murphy to stay with him in California for three weeks and signed the young hero to a small acting contract.
He played bit parts and, by 1950, had secured a seven-year contract with Universal Studios. His first role with them was Billy the Kid in The Kid from Texas, aptly titled “The Kid from Texas.”
Murphy found his place in Westerns, but his battlefield legend was never too far away. In 1951, he was lent to MGM to star in an adaptation of Stephen Crane’s landmark Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage.”
His military past lent his characters’ authenticity, and his boyish good looks made him a box office draw. Films like Destry (1954), Drums Across the River (1954), and Gunsmoke (1953) established him as a leading man of the Western screen.
Perhaps his most famous film role was playing himself in To Hell and Back (1955), the adaptation of his own memoir.
Reluctant to star in the picture at first, Murphy eventually agreed, and the result was a smash hit. It became Universal Pictures’ highest-grossing film until Jaws two decades later.
Watching the real man reenact his trauma on screen added a haunting layer to the film.
Murphy had talked openly about his struggle with what we would now call PTSD.
“After the war, they took army dogs and rehabilitated them for civilian life. But they turned soldiers into civilians immediately and let ‘em sink or swim,” he said.
Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, Murphy’s film career stayed rooted in Westerns. He portrayed lawmen, drifters, and reluctant gunslingers—characters shaped by duty, honor, and a hint of melancholy. Murphy also ventured into television, guest-starring in several shows and even developing his own Western-themed series, though none achieved lasting success.
Though his film career waned in the 1970s, Murphy remained a beloved figure in American culture.
In 1971, the country was shocked when he and five others died when their plane crashed into the side of a mountain near Roanoke, Virginia.
Famous World War II correspondent Bill Maudlin remembered Murphy this way: “In him, we all recognized the straight, raw stuff, uncut and fiery as the day it left the still. Nobody wanted to be in his shoes, but nobody wanted to be unlike him, either.”
In 1996, we inducted Murphy into the Hall of Great Western Performers here at The Cowboy.
And with that, we’ll hang a medal on another episode of “This Week in The West.”
Our show is produced by Chase Spivey and written by Mike Koehler
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We leave you today with the words of Audie Murphy talking about his movie career: “I’ve made 40 pictures. I made the same Western about 30 times … but with different horses.”
Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
