MURPHY, FREDERICK C. - Medal of Honor Recipient
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Medical Detachment,
259th Infantry, 65th Infantry Division. Place and date: Siegfried Line
at Saarlautern, Germany, 18 March 1945. Entered service at: Weymouth, Mass.
Birth: Boston, Mass. G.O. No.: 21, 26 February 1946. Citation: An aid man,
he was wounded in the right shoulder soon after his comrades had jumped
off in a dawn attack 18 March 1945, against the Siegfried Line at Saarlautern,
Germany. He refused to withdraw for treatment and continued forward, administering
first aid under heavy machinegun, mortar, and artillery fire. When the
company ran into a thickly sown antipersonnel minefield and began to suffer
more and more casualties, he continued to disregard his own wound and unhesitatingly
braved the danger of exploding mines, moving about through heavy fire and
helping the injured until he stepped on a mine which severed one of his
feet. In spite of his grievous wounds, he struggled on with his work, refusing
to be evacuated and crawling from man to man administering to them while
in great pain and bleeding profusely. He was killed by the blast of another
mine which he had dragged himself across in an effort to reach still another
casualty. With indomitable courage, and unquenchable spirit of self-sacrifice
and supreme devotion to duty which made it possible for him to continue
performing his tasks while barely able to move, Pfc. Murphy saved many
of his fellow soldiers at the cost of his own life.
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