From Texas on the Potomac
 | On this date in 1945, during World War II, First Lt. Audie Murphy single-handedly stopped German troops from advancing on his unit, killing 50 of them. In eastern France, near the village of Holtzwihr, Murphy and his men came under siege by six German tanks and 250 infantrymen. Murphy, who grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Hunt County, told his men to fall back into the woods. Murphy climbed atop a burning tank destroyer with a machine gun. Though he was shot in the leg while he stood, he remained atop the tank for an hour, stopping troops on three sides. Thanks to Murphy's efforts, he and his men successfully led a counterattack that drove the Germans from Holtzwihr. For his act, Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor. He became the nation's most decorated soldier before he turned 21. When Murphy returned to the United States, he began an acting career and starred in more than 40 films. Murphy died in 1971, at the age of 46, when the private plane in which he rode crashed near Roanoke, Va. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC. |
Audie Murphy playing himself in the 1955 movie based upon his autobiography "To Hell and Back".
As the information blurb states on the video page, "Rambo is a myth, but Audie was the real thing."
| Wikipedia Entry IMDB listing for the movie. Murphy's other movies, mostly Westerns. |  |
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