Oral history interview with Donald M. Murphy, [sound recording], 2004.

ArchivalResource

Murphy, Donald M., 1925-2007. Oral history interview with Donald M. Murphy, [sound recording], 2004.

Oral history interview with Donald M. Murphy, [sound recording], 2004.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/428436603

Donald Murphy, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, discusses his service as a radio operator in the 92nd Armored Division, 1st Army in the European and Pacific theaters during World War II. He recalls hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor at a high school basketball game in Milwaukee. In 1943, Murphy registered for the draft on his eighteenth birthday and applied for early induction into the Army. He mentions his father was a World War I veteran and his parents supported his decision to enlist. Murphy briefly describes his induction at Fort Sheridan (Illinois). He was assigned to the Army Air Force and went through basic training in Atlantic City (New Jersey), but he failed the eye exam and did not pass into flight school. Murphy reveals that because of his prior interest in ham radios, he was sent to Radio School at Camp Crowder (Missouri). He relates he spent six months there and became a Morse Code instructor. After Radio School, Murphy explains he was sent to do an AFST (Air Force Specialized Training) program at Kansas State College. He remarks that universities were "going broke" because all the young men were fighting in the war, so the Army used AFST programs to bail out the universities. Murphy enjoyed taking engineering classes and playing football at Kansas State. Murphy explains that the AFST programs were shut down as the war escalated. Rather than become an Air Force officer as he had been promised, Murphy was deployed to Europe as a radio operator with the infantry. Murphy arrived in Aachen (Germany) in 1944, a couple months after D-Day. He details his trek with the 92nd Armored Division, 1st Army across the Rhine and Sieg Rivers in the Ruhr Pocket (Germany). Murphy outlines his duties as radio operator and describes at length how his unit crossed the Rhine. He comments that, after crossing the river, his main mission was to round up German soldiers and care for the wounded. He tells a story of picking up a wounded German officer in his jeep and striking up a conversation with the officer, who had gone to Yale. When Murphy arrived at the field hospital, the German officer gave him his belt and gun as a gift, which Murphy saved throughout the war. Next, Murphy describes a near-death experience: his jeep was hit by German mortars and flipped over into a crater, burying Murphy beneath. He recalls experiencing a "euphoric state" as he realized he was about to die and waking up later in the field hospital after his buddies dug him out. Murphy touches upon daily life: eating box rations and sleeping with six other infantrymen in foxholes underneath tanks. Once Murphy's division crossed the Rhine River, they joined the 82nd Airborne Division and Patton's 3rd Army. Murphy mentions he often spotted General George S. Patton driving around in jeeps. He quotes Patton as ordering the troops: "You steal the gas, the tires, anything useful, but you keep going east." Murphy explains this was exactly how they crossed southern Germany, pushing forward and taking tires off abandoned vehicles. On the way, their mission was to pick up lost airmen, some of whom had been in hiding for six months. Murphy reports they ended up on the Czech border. He vividly describes going through a ghost town called Flossenburg and discovering a Nazi death camp that the Allies did not know existed. Murphy discusses in detail liberating the camp. He describes seeing gas chambers, a basement full of bones and ashes, and a gallows. He later learned the gallows were used to execute German political prisoners, including a well-known Lutheran pastor, who had attempted to assassinate Hitler. Murphy comments that the prisoners of the Flossenburg concentration camp looked like skeletons dressed in rags and were afraid to approach the Americans or leave the camp because "it was all they knew." Muprhy tells how he and some other troops broke into a department store in town and took clothes to the prisoners. He reflects that "the people in the town purposely never went beyond a certain border...they didn't want to admit they knew about [the death camp]." Murphy mentions he was the first to radio the discovery of the death camp through the chain of command, and he touches upon the media coverage of the camp's liberation. Murphy explains that this was the end of the war and that an accord between Washington and the Russians had given control of everything east of Czechoslovakia to the Russians. Murphy describes having to march west, across the Czech border, as the Russians took over. He tells how he and his fellow soldiers would cross the border at night to socialize with Russian soldiers, drinking alcohol and singing. In 1945, after V-E day, Murphy returned to Fort Bragg (California) for amphibious training, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. He reveals that many soldiers, fearing the Japanese, jumped off the troop train heading to Seattle and hid in the woods. Murphy recalls hearing the news of the atomic bombing of Japan on the troop train. His unit did go to mainland Japan, where their mission involved policing and disarming the population. Murphy describes an incident where he took make-shift bamboo weapons away from some schoolboys. Murphy claims he attempted to drive a truck over to the site where the atomic bomb was dropped (he does not specify whether the city was Hiroshima or Nagasaki), but the Americans set up blockades preventing anyone from viewing the destruction. After the war, Murphy studied biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the G.I. Bill. He states that receiving an "education at an institution like this" was "my reward" for serving in World War II.

Sound recording : 2 sound cassettes (ca. 65 min.); analog, 1 7/8 ips.Master sound recording : 2 sound cassettes (ca. 65 min.); analog, 1 7/8 ips.Transcript : 25 p.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center