Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Audie Murphy

There’s been a few threads about Fire members Dad’s who were in W2, either in Europe or the Pacific.

Many came home with tonnage in medals earned on their chests...I Never read a thread where the man who was heroic in battle wasn’t described as a calm, kind, loyal and humorous person in life after the war.

It would seem there’s a commonality in the men who just did the job, because it had to be done...😎

RIP
Audie Murphy

My daughter in law has a little niece who is in the Air Force. Niece’s husband is in AF too. Last monday they were at Arlington. She sent this photo to her Uncle James (old son).

Thanks for posting that Bob!

In the mid 1950's Hollywood actors started holding fast draw contests and Hugh O'Brian claimed to be the fastest. There is an apparently true story repeated that on a movie set with Audie Murphy, O'Brian pestered Murphy to see who was the fastest. Murphy showed no interest and finally said, “OK, with live ammunition.” O'Brian wisely backed down.

Audie was from our area in Hunt County. We have a small museum in Greenville, Texas for him.

OrangeOkie,

Fwiw, there a few flaws in the article about MAJ Murphy (He made Major in the TXARNG) was that the ARMY, NAVY, USAAC & the Marines turned him down, as "unsuitable for military service". = He WAS allowed to join the 3/144th Infantry Regiment, TXARNG & when he attended basic training, he was allowed to enlist in the Active Army for a period "of the World War plus 6 months".
(After he received the MoH, I've wondered how embarrassed that all of the people must have been to NOT have accepted THE MOST DECORATED soldier of WWII into their branch of service because of "unsuitability".)

When he was released from AD with the US Army, 1LT Murphy returned to the TXARNG, was promoted to Captain & later to Major.
(He was a Major at retirement from the Texas Guard. - We of the 3/144th Infantry are VERY PROUD of his valor & service, whether AD or ARNG and that he was "one of ours".

Btw, my mother taught Audie (8th Grade English) & all of his sisters (Vocational Home Economics) when she taught school in Elysian Fields. - (After Mother passed away at age 99YO in SEP 2016, we found a long letter from 2LT Murphy in Mother's Bible, that he wrote her just before Christmas 1944 & while he was hospitalized in an Army hospital with a severe bullet-wound to his hip. = 2LT Murphy said in the "Christmas letter" that he had received an appointment to WEST POINT & that he was eager to be a WPMA cadet & looked forward to being a Career Army Officer. - As his luck would have it, his wound never healed sufficiently to allow him to attend West Point & in early 1945 he was released from active Army service for "disability" BUT he never received a service-connected disability check, as far as I can find out.)

yours, tex

“Murphy went to elementary school while growing up around Farmersville, Greenville and Celeste finally dropping out of school in fifth grade. He got a cotton picking job to support his family”

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/audie-murphy-3650.php

“Audie grew on farms in the area and attended school in Celeste. His education was cut short in 1936 when his father abandoned the family. Left with only a fifth-grade education, Murphy began working on local farms as a laborer to help support his family.”

https://www.thoughtco.com/first-lieutenant-audie-murphy-2360163

“Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy

Posts like yours is why I'm thoroughly enjoying the campfire. Thanks, Tex.

Had a friend of mine who was at odds with his wife & on the verge of divorce. He awoke one night to the sound of her loading the gun. Never went back.

Who was the fastest gun in Hollywood?

Ron Bolza
Slatington, Pennsylvania

Some of the names might surprise you. How about Sammy Davis Jr. and Jerry Lewis?

The first fast draw competition took place at Knott’s Berry Farm in 1954.

Hugh O’Brian claimed his 0.25 of a second was the fastest, but Davis Jr. and Lewis were reportedly faster. O’Brian challenged Audie Murphy to a contest, but when Murphy requested live ammunition, O’Brian wisely declined.

Others who were good at fast draw during the 1950s and 1960s, says Firearms Editor Phil Spangenberger, included Wally “Mr. Peepers” Cox, Hugh Downs (a host of the early Today show), dancer Donald O’Connor, singers Marty Robbins and Frankie Lane, and actors Glenn Ford, Clu Gulager, Ernest Borgnine, Jock Mahoney and Clint Eastwood.

always thought Glenn Ford was about the fastest movie gunslinger........

Murphy himself said there was only one thing wrong in any of his movies.......
“I can’t act........”

Morewood,

I was HONORED to have actually talked twice for a few minutes to MAJ Murphy by phone when I was assigned to HQ, 3/144th in MAR 1971. = LTC Cobb told me to call him & see if there was any possibility that he could appear at the Greenville or Terrill armories for a ceremony in his honor.

Shortly thereafter he was killed in the plane crash.

ADDENDA: Speaking of his affection for our TXARNG unit, MAJ Murphy gave his personal Model of 1917 US Army Rifle (the so-called American Enfield rifle of WWI) to one of our company's EM in Summer 1970.
(I believe that the SM who received the rifle was some sort of relative, but I'm NOT sure of that.)

yours, tex

The Fastest Gun Alive

Murphy would not pull his punches during fight scenes. He'd fight for real.

Ethan Edwards,

I'd bet that TOM MIX was one of the fastest "draws", if not the FASTEST. =- Tom Mix was a REAL cowboy, as well as an actor & was said to be DEADLY quick/accurate with his .38-40 Colt's SA.

Once on a set of an early "talkie", Tom Mix shot the head off of a rattlesnake with real bullets, when that snake threatened to delay continuing the "film shoot".
(I'd bet the FACT that Tom Mix was carrying real ammo in his revolver "got everyone's attention".)

yours, tex

Doing what needed doing at the time.

+1!

Absolutely true. Heard that he could come to full draw from his hip in .25 second.

-Ken

None of them could do this...