His sister’s affidavit changed the age problem on paper. The Army accepted him on June 30, 1942. He was sent to Camp Wolters, Texas, for basic infantry training, then to Fort Meade, Maryland for additional training, and shipped out to Casablanca, Morocco, in February 1943. He joined Company B, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, in Algeria.
The 3rd Infantry Division was one of the most combat-experienced American divisions in the European and Mediterranean theaters, with a reputation for sustained hard fighting that earned it the nickname “Rock of the Marne” from its World War I service. By the time Murphy joined Company B, the division was training for what would become the Allied invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky.
Murphy was 17 years old — by his actual birth year — when he arrived in Africa. He was going to have his 18th birthday, by either birth year, while his unit was fighting in Sicily.
## Sicily: July-August 1943
Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, began on July 10, 1943. The 3rd Infantry Division landed at Licata on the southern coast. Murphy landed with Company B.
He was promoted to corporal on July 15, five days after the landing. Near Canicattì, during a patrol that encountered fleeing Italian soldiers, he shot two Italian officers — a moment that would later be described in his memoir and that became part of the documented record of his early combat experience. The specific circumstances, as reported in later accounts, involved soldiers who appeared to be fleeing rather than surrendering, though accounts vary in detail, and the memoir *To Hell and Back* is a retrospective narrative rather than a contemporaneous document.