From The Front To The Films: A World War II Podcast

This is an oral testimony of Captain Frank Murphy from The Frank Murphy Collection at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

Throughout our episodes, you have been hearing audio clips from this interview.  Here is the interview with Frank Murphy in its entirety.


Sitting on jeep, left to right: Lt. Frank Murphy and Lt. Charles Cruikshank. Standing far right is Capt. Albert “Bucky” Elton, 418th Sq. Operations Officer. Others kneeling and sitting, left to right: Lt. Augie Gaspar, Lt. Glenn Graham, and Lt. Burr, 418th Sq. Intelligence Officer. Murphy Collection.

Frank Murphy survived German POW camps after being shot out of his B-17 Flying Fortress. His bravery earned him the Prisoner of War Medal, Purple Heart, and Air Medal. The incredible stories of Murphy and his 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group is now being featured in the Apple TV+ Series, Masters of the Air. 

Murphy's story documents his order of assignments, the everyday adversity of war, his downing and his custody--all told with unembellished, yet searing objectivity.

Members of the 100th Bomb Group at RAF Thorpe Abbotts on August 17, 1943.  Frank D. Murphy is kneeling on the left with a dagger in his pocket.

Below is an excerpt from his memoir, Luck of the Draw:

On Monday, June 28, 1943, along with seventeen other [100th Bomb Group aircrafts], and three other 4th BW groups equipped with Tokyo tanks, Crew No. 31 set out to attack the German submarine pens at Saint-Nazaire, France. Because of the large number of antiaircraft guns ringing the port, it was known as “Flak City.” Out of respect for this formidable array of defensive weaponry, our bombing altitude would be twenty-eight thousand feet, the highest bombing altitude of our combat tour. With our long-range fuel tanks, it was not necessary for us to fly over France; instead, we departed the English coast at Land’s End at the southwestern tip of England, flew entirely over water around the Brest Peninsula, and made our bomb run from the sea over the Bay of Biscay. It was a beautiful sunny day, but as we turned to our bomb run at the IP, I saw antiaircraft fire for the first time.

It horrified me. The flak was easy for me to see since my navigator’s table was immediately behind the bombardier, whose position was in the Plexiglas cone that formed the nose of the bomber. I could easily see past the bombardier and, of course, I had windows of my own, so getting an eyeful of flak bursts was unavoidable. When we entered the flak, it was an almost uninterrupted cloud of swirling black smoke filled with angry red explosions. Plainly, any one of those exploding shells could obliterate an aircraft and its crew without warning. When the group ahead of us entered this inferno, they all but disappeared. My heart felt as if it would stop. It did not appear possible that anyone or anything could fly into that hell and come out alive on the other side. But somehow, despite being buffeted by thunderous explosions and the incessant clinking, clanging, and pinging of shell fragments striking our airplane, we made it through.

I quickly learned to hate flak—it frightened the life out of me. We could not see it coming, nor could we fight back as we could with enemy fighters. The German gun-laying radar was incredibly accurate. The standard German antiaircraft gun, the 88 mm flak cannon, was capable of hurling an eighteen-pound shell to a maximum slant range of nine thousand yards. It took the shell twenty-five seconds to cover this distance, and during this time, its target would move almost two miles. Yet we seldom knew we were under fire until the antiaircraft shells began exploding in proximity to us, usually in simultaneous bursts of four black puffs from a single battery if it was light, or in thick concentrations of random explosions if several batteries were zeroed in on us.

We couldn’t take evasive action until we were already in the middle of it, and on a bomb run, we took no evasive action regardless of how intense the flak was. We had to fly straight and level so the bombardier could drop the bombs on target. The din inside the airplane was horrific—the continuous roaring of our four Wright Cyclone engines was almost deafening. Still, we could easily hear the muffled explosions of nearby flak bursts, and if they were really close, they made loud, cracking sounds like near-miss lightning strikes or breaking tree limbs. If German fighters attacked us, the airplane shook and vibrated violently from the operation of our flexible machine guns and power turrets, sounding much like someone thumping on washtubs with sticks. Dust and threads of insulation flew about the airplane, and shrapnel from flak, which varied in size from as big as baseballs to as small as gravel, rained on and often penetrated the thin skin of the airplane. Inside the Plexiglas nose of the airplane, it was as if we were in a fishbowl in a shooting gallery five miles up in the sky in an already-unforgiving environment. It is difficult to describe how exposed and unprotected we felt.

Wreckage of Frank Murphy's B17, shot down over Münster, Germany

Mission 21, Münster, Germany

The Battle over Munster was a pivotal moment in the war, and it played a significant role in the eventual Allied victory. By targeting the railroad marshalling yards, the Allies were able to disrupt the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the German front lines, weakening their position and ultimately helping to turn the tide of the war.

Shot down

During this hazzardous mission near Münster, on October 10th 1943, Frank (on his twenty first mission) was aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress "AW-R-Go" (#42-30725) when the plane was shot down.

Crew members B-17 Flying Fortress "AW-R-Go"

• Captain Charles B.Cruikshank, Pilot, POW
• 1st Leutenant, Glenn E.Graham, Copilot, POW
• Captain Frank D.Murphy, Navigator, POW
• 1st Leutenant, August H.Gaspar, Bombardier, POW
• T/Sergeant Orlando E. Vincenti, Radio operator, KIA
• T/Sergeant Leonard R.Weeks, Top Turret, POW
•  S/Sergeant Robert L.Bixler, Ball Turret, POW
• S/Sergeant James M.Johnson, Waist gunner, POW
• S/Sergeant Donald B.Garrison, Waist gunner, POW
• Sergeant Charles A.Clark, Tail gunner, KIA

Atlanta Journal Constitution Article from early November 1943 after Frank Murphy and his crew were shot down.

Taken prisoner

Captain Frank D. Murphy (22) was taken prisoner of war for the remainder of the war, which lasted for another nineteen months. He was first sent to Stalag Luft III in Sagan, a prisoner of war camp for captured airmen. In January 1945, as the Russian Army advanced on the camp, the prisoners were moved to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, which was a work camp for Allied prisoners of war.

After enduring a grueling march in sub-zero temperatures, with little rest or food, many soldiers did not survive the journey. Frank even traded his shoes with a fellow soldier to survive. They were then crammed into boxcars for two days and three nights with no access to sunlight or fresh air.

Preparing to depart Stalag Luft VIIA on May 10, 1945.  Frank D. Murphy standing third from the left.

Liberation

Upon arrival in Moosburg, where he was assigned to Work Camp 3324-46 Krumbachstrasse and later to Work Camp 3368 in Munich, the conditions were horrific. Frank referred to it as a "living hellhole of all hellholes." However, on April 29th, 1945, General George S. Patton's American Third Army liberated over 100.000 POWs, including Frank. He had lost over 50 pounds, weighing only 122 pounds at the time of liberation.

During his time in service, Frank earned among others, the Air Medal, The Purple Heart, The US Prisoner of War Medal and the European Campaign Ribbon.