## The Official Record: Citation and Awards
The Medal of Honor citation for Audie L. Murphy is General Orders No. 65, dated 9 August 1945. The citation acknowledges his actions of January 26, 1945, near Holtzwihr, France, as Second Lieutenant, Company B, 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division.
The citation credits Murphy with killing or wounding approximately 50 enemy soldiers through his artillery direction and machine gun fire. This figure is the official credited account based on the citation and the accounts of witnesses and unit reports available at the time of the award. It is not an independently verified modern casualty count; it is what the citation states, and it should be understood as such.
The Medal of Honor was presented on June 2, 1945, near Salzburg, Austria, by Lieutenant General Alexander Patch, the commander of the Seventh Army. At the presentation, General Patch described Murphy as “the most decorated American soldier in World War II.” This was a characterization made at a specific ceremonial moment by the officer presenting the award; whether it held up to precise comparison across all services and theaters is a question the guardrails for this article flag as requiring care. What is documented is that Murphy received the Medal of Honor along with the Legion of Merit at that ceremony, and that by the war’s end his total decorations were extraordinary in their number and variety.
His complete decoration record, by war’s end:
The Medal of Honor. The Distinguished Service Cross. Two Silver Stars. The Legion of Merit. Two Bronze Stars, one with “V” device for valor. Three Purple Hearts, each with subsequent Oak Leaf Clusters representing additional wounds. The Combat Infantryman Badge. American campaign and theater ribbons.