By January 1945, the 601st was an experienced unit with more than two years of combat experience — a rarity in the American Army by that stage of the war, when the specific attrition of extended combat had replaced most of the original personnel of most units multiple times over. The M10 crews that arrived at Murphy’s position in the Bois de Riedwihr were not raw troops; they were veterans of an extended campaign.
The specific fate of the two M10s — one knocked out by an 88mm shell, one mired in a ditch — is documented in the accounts of the action. The 601st continued to fight in the reduction of the Colmar Pocket and in the subsequent advance into Germany. Its history from January 1945 through the end of the war in May is part of the larger record of American armor in the final months of the European campaign.
The connection between Murphy and the 601st at Holtzwihr is specific: the battalion provided the vehicles that he used in the action, including the burning M10 that he climbed onto. The battalion’s crews had abandoned that vehicle as unsafe before Murphy climbed onto it. The judgment of experienced tank destroyer crews about whether to stay on a burning vehicle is worth noting.
## Anzio’s Specific Shadow
The Battle of Anzio — January 22 to June 5, 1944 — was the longest sustained engagement of Murphy’s combat service, and it left a specific mark on Company B that cannot be fully measured by its casualties.