Army Col. Charles Patrick Murray Jr. spent three decades serving his country, but his most notable contribution came toward the beginning of his career. During the waning days of World War II in Europe, Murray took out dozens of enemy soldiers while trying to establish a position for his platoon along a French valley. He received the Medal of Honor for his fearless actions and leadership.
Murray was born Sept. 26, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Charles and Florence Murray. He had two younger brothers, William and Donald, and he went by the nickname Chuck.
When Murray was still a baby, his parents moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. He was a member of the Boy Scouts as a child and achieved the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout in 1934.
After Murray graduated from Wilmington’s New Hanover High School in 1938, he spent three years studying at the University of North Carolina before being drafted into the Army in September 1942. After a few months of training, he was sent to officer candidate school and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943.
In August 1944, Murray was deployed to England to join the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment. A few weeks after D-Day, the division landed in France and started their push east.
By December, Murray’s unit, Company C, had been tasked with securing a hill in Kaysersberg, France. During several days of fighting, the company was able to secure the hill, but several company officers were killed, allowing Murray to move up in the ranks to become company commander.
On Dec. 16, 1944, then-1st Lt. Murray accompanied one of his three platoons on a special mission into enemy territory to keep the Germans from getting in and out of a valley near the hill. In order to do so, they had to descend into the valley along a narrow trail.
During their descent, Murray saw about 200 Germans who were pouring deadly mortar, bazooka and machine gun fire into an American battalion on the crest of a ridge. The men on the ridge couldn’t see the enemy, which was hiding in a position on a sunken road, but Murray could see the enemy’s flank. He didn’t want to risk the lives of his small platoon against such a large force, so instead of engaging, he told his platoon to take cover.
Murray then crawled ahead of his troops to a small vantage point where he could see the enemy before radioing for artillery to bombard them, he said in a Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview. However, his coordinates were a bit off, and the artillery missed. When he went to adjust the range, his radio went dead.
Needing to adjust his options, Murray went back to where his platoon was waiting and grabbed some grenades and a launcher. He returned to where he could see the enemy and fired. The first few shots disclosed his position, so enemy troops aimed all their fire at him as he continued pummeling them with grenades until he ran out of ammunition.
Murray then went back to his platoon’s makeshift outpost, this time grabbing an automatic rifle and ammunition. He once more moved to his exposed position, firing burst after burst at the enemy. One account of the fight said that Murray fired about 2,000 rounds, with the help of two other soldiers who continued to toss him ammunition. He was also able to take out a truck that he later learned was carrying three German mortars.
Murray’s effort killed 20 enemy soldiers and wounded several others. When a U.S. mortar was brought in to help, he directed that fire, leading to about 50 more enemy casualties. The bombardment led to chaos in the enemy’s ranks, and they began to withdraw via a creek.
Calling on his platoon to follow, Murray raced down the small trail into the valley so he could take control of a bridge there and construct a roadblock. Along the way, Murray captured 10 Germans in foxholes. An eleventh pretended to surrender, but threw a grenade when Murray looked away for a second. Murray and several others were injured in the blast.
Instead of allowing his troops to fire on that enemy soldier, Murray took the man hostage. Bleeding profusely by then, Murray kept moving forward until he’d found the right spot for his men to set up the roadblock. Finally, he turned command of the company over to this executive officer before walking back up the steep hill to an aid station. His single-handed attack stopped the enemy in its tracks and enabled his unit to take the valley despite formidable odds.
Murray was hospitalized until after Christmas, when he grew anxious to get back to his troops.
“I found that the wounded troops recovering were being sent to units up north to replace soldiers that had been wounded or captured in the [Battle of the] Bulge area,” he told the VHP. “I didn’t want to go to some unit up north. I wanted to go back to my division.”
So, Murray found a uniform that fit him and hitched a ride on an ambulance to where the 3rd ID was based. He then caught a ride on a ration truck to the 30th Infantry’s aid station before walking toward the hill where he’d last left his men.
“I was a little concerned because there were Germans in the area and I had no pistol,” Murray said. After a while, a Jeep came by and gave him a ride to the battalion command post. He then made his way back to his company’s position, which they held until replacements took over on New Year’s Day 1945.
Murray continued to command Company C for the rest of the war. They became the first Allied unit to enter Munich on April 30, 1945, and continued to push on into Salzburg, Austria, on May 5, two days before fighting ended in Europe.
Murray said he’d learned that February that he had been recommended for the Medal of Honor, but he didn’t think it was going to happen because he was never sent to the rear of his division, which was tradition for Medal of Honor nominees during the war to keep them safe. The young lieutenant said he didn’t know the award was actually going to happen until his wife, Anne, sent him a newspaper clipping that mentioned the medal in June.
During a ceremony at the Salzburg airport on July 5, 1945, Murray received the nation’s highest honor for valor from Army Lt. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes, II Corps’ commanding general.
When Murray returned home after the war, he took some time to finishing his studies at UNC, earning a bachelor’s degree in June of 1946. That September, he returned to active duty. At some point, he also received a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University. He and his wife went on to have three children, Charles III, Brian and Cynthia.
Murray made a career out of the Army, serving in various command posts over the following decades, including during the Vietnam War — a war in which both of his sons also served. He retired as a colonel in 1973 after 30 years of service.
His family settled down in Columbia, South Carolina, where Murray then worked for a decade as a senior planner for the state’s Corrections Department. He was known as a humble man who, in his later years, worked tirelessly to promote veterans’ issues and educate students about service to their country.
Murray died peacefully at his home on Aug. 12, 2011, after suffering from congestive heart failure, his family said. He was weeks away from his 90th birthday. The retired colonel is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
In Murray’s honor, two schools were named for him — a middle school in Wilmington and an elementary school at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
This article is part of a weekly series called “Medal of Honor Monday” in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have received the U.S. military’s highest medal for valor.
