Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:44 | Jim Murphy describes the job of a forward observer during the push on Germany. They had bulky radios and strung a lot of telephone wire, the only two means of communicating with the battery. They also took German fire from mortars and the dreaded 88 mm guns.
Keywords : Jim Murphy Forward Observer (FO) field artillery spotter plane mortar 88 mm gun foxhole tree burst
Jim Murphy was lucky to grow up at the Masonic Home of Georgia, an orphanage near Macon. He was not one of the orphans, rather his father worked there as a printer, running the print shop and teaching the trade. There was a farm for food, a nice thing to have during the Great Depression.
Jim Murphy was seventeen years old when the radio brought the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Since he enjoyed ROTC in high school, he was an enthusiastic member when he went off to Georgia Tech, where recruits were promised they would graduate and receive a commission. Of course, it didn't work out that way and he was off to active duty, where he managed to conceal something that would have ended his enlistment.
Conditions were miserable when Jim Murphy was in basic training at Camp Wallace in Texas. He did well, though, so well that he received a rare three day pass to visit home. There was just one problem. Home was in Georgia.
He was taken from college ROTC, sent to basic training, then sent to another college as part of the ASTP program. It seemed the Army just couldn't make up it's mind about what to do with bright students like Jim Murphy. Then it decided. It was off to the war for them.
At first, Jim Murphy was assigned to an infantry unit, but when they found out about his previous artillery training, he was moved to the field artillery. The morale was awful there but he persevered and became a forward observer team member. He was just about ready for the push on Germany.
It was a former luxury liner but the Atlantic crossing was anything but luxurious. Jim Murphy had something in his duffel bag to help fight the boredom and he wound up entertaining the whole ship with it. He was also one of the lucky ones who wasn't seasick.
Just weeks off the ship, Jim Murphy was in a jeep driving his forward observer team up the Rhone Valley. At Barr in France, his lieutenant was killed. Along with the sergeant on the team, they fulfilled their mission for the rest of the war.
Forward observer Jim Murphy was alone in an outpost on Christmas in 1944, watching a German outpost where they were watching him. A runner brought him some hot food, which he greatly appreciated but, later that night, he became severely ill. It was not the food.
His unit was moving fast at the end of the war and Jim Murphy wound up in Austria. He didn't have nearly enough points for discharge, so he returned to the States to prepare for the invasion of Japan. Then came the news that seemed like a miracle from heaven.
