Alfred Pierse Murphy was born in Dublin, Ireland in May 1922. He celebrated his third birthday on the boat taking him and his family to America. His father had sent for them when he was able to earn enough money to buy them passage. His father had secured a flat in Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan]. Murphy had uncles who had immigrated over as well. Murphy had one older brother and three older sisters. His father made brushes for a living, working at the Michigan Brush Company in Detroit. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945], his father always had a job and therefore never had to go on government assistance. After his high school graduation, Murphy was working in the Chrysler tank arsenal in Warren, Michigan when he heard that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]]. His first reaction was wondering where Pearl Harbor was. He did not realize the importance of this event until much later. Murphy continued to work for various assembly plants until he enlisted in the Army Air Corps on 5 August 1942. His brother had convinced him to join the Navy Air Corps first. When they got to the office, it was closed, so they went to the Army Air Corps instead. Murphy and his brother had to take a three-hour long test, which they both passed.

Alfred Pierse Murphy and his brother were sent to Maxwell Field [Annotator's Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base Montgomery, Alabama] for 12 weeks of pre-flight training. While there, he was able to be squadron commander. He used a saber [Annotator's Note: heavy military sword], which was different than the sword he used when he was a captain in the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. After completing pre-flight training, he began primary flying school and trained on PT-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 Kaydet or PT-13 primary trainer aircraft]. Murphy's depth perception was off and he washed out of the pilot program. Murphy and his brother were sent to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for radio operator and mechanic school for six months. The weather was freezing cold, and they lived in wooden shacks the Army called barracks. After he completed the program in December 1943, he was sent to Yuma, Arizona for aerial gunnery school for 12 weeks. The weather was quite warm there. After completing that course, Murphy and his brother received their wings. He was sent to Alexandria, Louisiana to form his crew and to train with them before going overseas. They practiced flying in B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. In early July 1944, he was sent overseas in a ship from New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] to Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England]. It took over a week because he was in a convoy. The living conditions were okay. He was appointed to an antiaircraft gun if they were attacked by the enemy. When he arrived in England, he was assigned to 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force at RAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force] Bassingbourn [Annotator's Note: in Cambridgeshire, England]. His brother was assigned to the 303rd Bombardment Group [Annotator's Note: 303rd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] in the same area of England.

Alfred Pierse Murphy began his missions [Annotator's Note: with the 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] in July [Annotator's Note: 1944]. He received battle stars [Annotator's Note: device worn to denote subsequent awards on medals and ribbons; also called campaign stars or service stars] for Normandy [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], Northern France, and the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The RAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force] Bassingbourn base [Annotator's Note: in Cambridgeshire, England] was very nice. All the buildings were brick and he lived in the barracks. There was a separate laundry room, and they had hot and cold running water. The mess hall was also in a big brick building. For recreation they played sports on the base, and they could go to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] once a month for a few days. Murphy's brother's base was only 30 miles from Bassingbourn, so he would come with him on trips to London. During his visits to London, he would hear buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] and eventually the V2 rockets [Annotator's Note: German Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Retribution Weapon 2, ballistic missile] but that did not stop him from enjoying his beer. Murphy visited his brother only once at his base to pick up a Mickey ship or Bombing Through Overcast (BTO) [Annotator's Note: an aircraft with an H2X, Mickey set, officially known as the AN/APS-15, was an American ground scanning radar system used for blind bombing during World War 2]. Murphy flew the Mickey ship on some missions, and he also did relay missions. Relay missions were when a plane flew up and down the English Channel and used a special device to pick up radio frequencies to communicate with the base and other bomber planes. His relay missions did not count as part of his official 35 missions to complete. His squadron lost 16 airplanes during his tour. During his missions he wore a heated suit, life preserver, parachute harness, flak suit, flak helmet, and earphones.

Alfred Pierse Murphy would be briefed on missions [Annotator's Note: the missions he flew with the 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. They would first go to the briefing room where there was a big map at the end of the room with a red string connecting the air base to the enemy targets. Then the crew split up and went to their assigned meetings. The pilots go to a meeting, the navigators go to a meeting, and the radio operators go to a meeting. In his meeting, he was given specific frequencies for different transmissions. Murphy took trips to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and thought the locals treated the Americans well. The first time he went to London he met a woman on the street and struck up a conversation with her. He found out she was from Dublin, Ireland which is where he was born. As the conversation continued, he realized that she was a prostitute. The Army Air Corps issued him a .45 semi-automatic [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] with a shoulder holster. He was also issued an escape kit that included pellets to clean water to drink, sulfur pills, morphine, fishhooks and line, a silk map of the area, and monetary notes for various countries. When Murphy's brother was on his 11th mission, his pilot was wounded in the arm. He saw the copilot was incapacitated. The pilot pushed the red button to alert the crew to put their parachutes on and to get ready to bail out. He was about to push it a second time when he saw the copilot wake up. They could land the plane safely. The Army sent the crew back to the United States. His brother was sent to Oakland, California and assigned as a radioman on a DC-4 [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-4 commercial airliner] transport plane flying supplies and transporting wounded in the Pacific. On one mission, his brother's crew was assigned to pick up paratroopers on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] and take them to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] to be part of the surrender ceremonies after the United States dropped the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] on Japan.

[Annotator's Note: There is a break in the video then the video starts while Alfred Pierse Murphy is mid-sentence.] He saw German fighter jets at the end of the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. It was impossible to shoot them down because they were going 600 miles per hour. Murphy never knew exactly the location of his crew's targets and why they were bombing certain targets. He only knew that bombing the targets helped with winning the war. They went where they were told and dropped what they wanted them to drop. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer pauses to adjust microphone on Murphy at 0:57:09.000.] Some people in his group [Annotator's Note: Murphy was a member of the 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] were anti-Semitic, but he respected the ball turret gunner on his crew who was Jewish because he was in combat just like everyone else. He found out that his pilot was a radio man before he became a pilot. Most of his crew members were young and many of them were under the age of 22 by the end of the war. On one mission the two wing planes of his squadron were knocked out by the Germans and three enemy planes were on their tail. They were able to knock out two of the three planes. On Murphy's very first mission, he saw planes a few miles ahead of him amid flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. After a few moments, he witnessed one of the planes ahead get hit by the flak and fall out of the sky. He realized that he was in combat. While on his missions he wore underwear, a flight suit, a heated suit, life vest, parachute harness, flak suit, microphone on his neck, earphones, and flak helmet. On one mission, his crew was assigned to bomb the Kiel Canal in Denmark [Annotator's Note: in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany]. They were 25,000 feet high and dropped their bombs on the target. They were then chased by German fighters along the English Channel and most of the way back to base. His crew also bombed Merseburg, Germany six times due to the large war production that occurred in that city. His crew received the Presidential Citation [Annotator's Note: Presidential Unit Citation, awarded to units for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941] for the successful missions to Merseburg.

For Alfred Pierse Murphy, the most difficult part of succeeding in a bombing mission was the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Not every mission was met by enemy fighter planes, but flak was always there. The enemy would shoot shells in the air, making a screen that the planes had no choice but to penetrate through. When the shell exploded, small shrapnel fragments pierced the plane. The closest Murphy ever came to getting wounded was due to flak. [Annotator's Note: An alarm goes off and interrupts the interview at 1:10:40.000.] He had flak come up through the radio room in between his legs and out through the ceiling. As a result, he was left with a pile of splinters in his lap. His crew received a Presidential Citation [Annotator's Note: Presidential Unit Citation, awarded to units for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941] for bombing the radar personnel for the flak batteries at Frankfurt, Germany. At least with enemy fighter planes, Murphy's crew could fight back by using their guns to return fire. Murphy's crew bombed various cities in Germany, including Merseburg, Strasbourg, Dresden, Munich, Frankfurt, and submarine pens. His plane never aborted a mission, never turned back, never lost an engine, and no one was ever wounded. They flew a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and named it "The Big Ass Bird." [Annotator's Note: An alarm goes off and interrupts the interview at 1:18:39.000.] One day, another crew took Murphy's airplane for a mission. They lost two engines and crash landed it on the beach of the English Channel. Murphy and his crew had to use another airplane to complete the rest of their 35 missions. The first time he saw a plane go down was on his very first mission. The plane was hit by flak and fell out of the sky. He realized that that it could happen to him. In November 1944, Murphy was on a mission with his squadron [Annotator's Note: 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] to bomb Merseburg. Enemy fighters attacked them. Murphy's crew fought off two of the German planes, but one of the B-17s was hit and went down. Murphy saw the pilot as he came over The Big Ass Bird and saluted him before he crashed. No one on the plane survived.

The fog in England was so bad that Alfred Pierse Murphy ran into a parked jeep on his return to the base from the PX [Annotator's Note: post exchange]. It was very dangerous to land when it was foggy because planes landed 15 seconds apart. If they did not get out of the way in time, they could crash. His crew never aborted a mission, never turned back, never lost an engine, and no one was ever wounded. His crew completed their 35 missions near the end of the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The weather was so bad that they had to land in an alternative airport because they could not make it back to base safely. Murphy had to sleep in a hanger on Christmas Eve of 1944. He did not mind, but he could not get cigarettes. The Army Air Corps could not guarantee that the crews would make it back to base after completing bombing missions during the Battle of the Bulge so they began supplying the crews with k-rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals] and cots and gave them locations of other airfields in France. Luckily, Murphy and his crew were able to return to their home base after they completed their last mission. It was a great feeling stepping off the plane for the last time. There was one time that he was put on a test flight with a skeleton crew. While in flight, he got bored in the radio room and decided to go up to the nose of the plane with the pilot, copilot, and navigator. When he got up there, he saw that they are about to run into some hay, but the pilot quickly diverted the plane. After they landed, he realized that they were all intoxicated.

Alfred Pierse Murphy returned to the United States by ship in late February [Annotator's Note: February 1945]. His ship was stalled in the Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England] dock for several days because of the bad weather. It only took four days to cross the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean]. The Army Air Corps sent him to Scott Field, Illinois where he instructed students on Morse code. He heard the news when the Germans surrendered. The Army Air Corps tried to incentivize him to fly in the Pacific with a pay increase, but Murphy did not volunteer. He wanted to be transferred out to California to do what his brother was doing, but he was denied. He was separated in September 1945 at Scott Field after the Japanese surrendered. He had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out of service early. He returned home and ten days later his mother asked him to get a job. He joined the Detroit Fire Department [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan]. He retired from that service 30 years later.

Alfred Pierse Murphy's most memorable experience was when six planes from his squadron [Annotator's Note: 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] were shot down on one mission. He fought because he is patriotic, and he loves this country. This country needed him. The war changed his life because he learned to not be fearful. He can get through struggles with the Lord guiding him.