Steve McMurray was born in June 1925 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father worked as an accountant for a realty company, his mother was a homemaker, and although McMurray had an older sibling, that child died, so he grew up as an only child. McMurray held odd jobs as he grew up, and tells the story of a peace initiative that produced "horrors of war" bubble gum wrappers that had illustrations of cities that suffered destruction from various historical conflicts. McMurry said that America was so isolationist that its citizens didn't pay much attention to what was going on overseas at the time, but because he always liked history, he stayed up with current events. When he played soldiers, the Americans would always win. One day his father added to his collection of toy soldiers by gifting him a Marine figure in dress blues, explaining that Marines were first to fight, and the statement left an indelible impression. In a time when most people were pacifists, McMurray described himself as an interventionist, and kept a watchful eye on happenings in both Europe and the Orient. On 7 December 1941, he and his dad came home from late church services to the radio announcement about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. McMurray figured President Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] embargo on iron shipments to Japan had probably precipitated the action, but he had long felt war was inevitable. McMurray guessed there would be involvement on two fronts, and he didn't care which enemy he was sent to fight. With mixed feelings on the part of his parents, he joined the Marine Corp on 19 June 1943 and left for basic training in San Diego, California on his 18th birthday.

The drill instructor Steve McMurray had for basic training was a small, compact, mean man from Mississippi who was "as explosive as a stick of dynamite." McMurray learned in time that it was a role he had to play, probably for the good of his recruits. McMurray recalled several memorable incidents, including one when a recruit committed the transgression of calling his rifle a "gun." He said the men were always under scheduling pressure and there was no time for friendships. They were taught how to swim in burning oil and to handle a rifle, and they worked their way through obstacle courses. After basic training, McMurray went to Camp Pendleton where he was assigned to the 40mm anti-aircraft Battery A, Special Weapons, 4th Heavy Weapons Battalion, 4th Marine Division [Annotator's Note: Battery A, Special Weapons Battalion, Division Special Troops, 4th Marine Division]. Without knowing how dangerous the work could be, McMurray allowed himself to be persuaded into training on the versatile and powerful Bofors 40mm aircraft gun, and as he excelled in handling the gun, he was made director of the elevation scope. When the students had liberty, they would go into Los Angeles to find girls, at nightclubs or the USO [Annotator's Note: United Services Organization] dances. Right before he shipped out for battle, someone was stealing insignias, and McMurray and his buddies were prevented from going ashore because they were out of uniform without their badges. By sliding down a hawser connecting the ship to the shore, they snuck out anyway, and luckily suffered no consequences except for being stained with oil from the rope.

On 13 January 1944, Steve McMurray left on a troop transport ship and was amazed at the clear blue water of the Pacific. The newly graduated Marines occupied themselves with the antiaircraft guns on the ship, and stood regular guard duty as well. McMurray didn't have any problems with the food on board, and particularly remembers that before going into battle, the Marines always enjoyed a steak dinner. Along the route, he said he was briefed on the battalion’s [Annotator's Note: McMurray was a gunner on a 40mm Bofors antiaircraft gun in Battery A, Special Weapons Battalion, Division Special Troops, 4th Marine Division] destination, and learned about the mistakes made at Tarawa with the tides and the reefs. This time they would go in on the lagoon side for an easier landing. McMurray said the Marines used new technology such as Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] that made the Marine Corps essential specialists in naval warfare. Traveling south, their transport ship met other vessels of Task Force 58, and formed a huge armada [Annotator's Note: heading for the islands of Roi and Namur in the Kwajalein Atoll]. On D-Day [Annotator's Note: 1 February 1944], McMurray was in reserve, and while guns from the battleships were blazing, and fighting was still going on just past the beaches, he helped bring their antiaircraft gun ashore, set up a perimeter defense, and dig an emplacement for it. He said that it was raining, and next morning their foxholes looked like swimming pools. Roi and Namur were a pair of islands connected by a sand spit, and most of the fighting took place on Namur, where the Japanese had more of a stronghold. McMurray recalled a huge explosion of a Japanese torpedo shed that was hit by American fire. It not only killed a lot of Japanese, but also killed and wounded many Americans as well.

When he went into combat for the first time, Steve McMurray said he, like everyone else, was scared. When he came upon the Japanese dead, all blown to pieces, and the Marine dead who were killed mostly by small arms fire, he noted that the movies he had seen before actually being in battle never really reflected the carnage of battle. His battalion [Annotator's Note: Mc Murray was a gunner on a 40mm Bofors antiaircraft gun in Battery A, Special Weapons Battalion, Division Special Troops, 4th Marine Division], covering the Roi component of the battle, came under sporadic fire, but the assault troops before them had taken most of the enemy out. McMurray said they were on the island about three days, and were filthy, so they went into the ocean surf to rinse off. While in the water, he felt a pain in his leg, but didn't want to look like a "ninny," so he ignored a small wound he discovered when he came out of the water. Left unattended, coral poisoning in that small wound put McMurray into sickbay with gangrene, and he was sent to Aiea Hospital in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where he underwent an operation and had great care. During his month's convalescence, the 4th Division was sent to Saipan, and McMurray felt bad about missing the battles of Saipan and Tinian in which his friends were embroiled. Those who came out of those vicious conflicts, which included the first real banzai attacks and the mass civilian suicides, were pretty beaten up. He, meanwhile, was transferred to Camp Maui, where he was reassigned to Headquarters Battalion. He mostly did busy work, and remembered having liberty on the beautiful island of Maui. McMurray observed a tremendous racial hatred between the Japanese and the Americans. In a lot of cases, the Marines didn't take Japanese prisoners, and it was understood among Americans that the worst thing that could happen was to be taken prisoner by the Japanese. There was little mercy on either side.

While he was stationed at Camp Maui, situated on an extinct volcano, Steve McMurray said some of the units trained on terrain similar to that on Iwo Jima, their next mission. It was a tent camp, and as McMurray remembers, there were four Marines in each tent, and they used outdoor cold showers and primitive latrines at the end of each "street" of tents. In preparing for their next battle, they did simulated landings, and practiced moving in and maneuvers. McMurray compared it to being in a rifle company, and he was training for different duty than the 40mm outfit. [Annotator's Note: Mc Murray was a gunner on a 40mm Bofors antiaircraft gun in Battery A, Special Weapons Battalion, Division Special Troops, 4th Marine Division until contracting gangrene shortly after the Battle of Kwajalein ended in early February 1944.] He had always had a talent for drawing, and did it whenever he had an opportunity while he was in the Marines. He spent some of the time he had on liberty, when he wasn't hitting every bar in Honolulu - he was once taken to jail for being sick on the sidewalk - drawing his surroundings, and sent them back to his mother and girlfriends back home. When McMurray left Hawaii, he knew nothing about where he was headed; only that it was going to be a "big operation." The ship stopped to refuel and collect and distribute mail at Eniwetok, and around that time the Marines were shown a mock-up of their island destination. McMurray said it was shaped like a "pork chop," and learned they were to land on Yellow Beach 2, and that their mission, as reserves, would commence after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day, or the day of the initial invasion, for Iwo Jima was 19 February 1945]. It was a beautiful day when the first troops landed. In McMurray's mind it was a strange day to fight and die. On D-Day plus six [Annotator's Note: 25 February 1945], McMurray went ashore in opposition to Hill 382, with heavy fire coming in. Coming up on the beach, he felt the scene was "almost theatrical," and as the sun came up he spied a mound of Marine bodies, all in pieces. The experience put an end to his notion that Marines were invincible, and he realized the fragility of the human body. This, he knew instinctively, was not going to be like Roi-Namur [Annotator's Note: Battle of Kwajalein, 31 January 1944 to 3 February 1944].

On their approach, Steve McMurray had heard that the landings on Iwo Jima were not going well. The scenes on the beaches were atrocious. All the defenders on the island were concentrating rocket and mortar rounds on the amphibious attack. Incoming vehicles and men would immediately sink into black volcanic sand on landing, encumbering the approaches, and were then overwhelmed by heavy fire. Resolved to get off the beaches, the troops kept moving up, knowing that any minute they could be targets. McMurray described the enemy positions as an "ant hill, burrowed into the bowels of the earth," well established and garrisoned by elite fighters of the Japanese forces. McMurray was astounded to see his first American B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] bomber land on Airfield Number 1, and noted that Iwo Jima became an important base for the B-29 squadrons. He also saw a Black Widow P-61 [Annotator's Note: Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter aircraft] night fighter from his position on the island. Nights were "absolutely the worst," according to McMurray, with the danger of enemy infiltration; the eerie, scorched terrain; the stench of the decaying dead; and the noxious sulphur fumes rising from the ground. Star shells and parachute flares would light the battlefield, creating shadows easily mistaken for the enemy. McMurray has since done a painting that represents such a scene. He recalled going out on patrol, running messages, and burial details, and was under fire from time to time, but luckily remained uninjured. The Marines always attended to their own dead, but there were Japanese bodies everywhere, and flies that had been on dead bodies would land on his K-rations when he was trying to eat.

Steve McMurray related that by the time an attacking unit reached its objective on the heights of Iwo Jima, its force had been so badly depleted that Japanese counterattacks would be almost irresistible, and the Marines had to take and retake places all the time. A day's progression was sometimes measured in mere yards. McMurray was never on the front lines, but was still under fire. He was on Iwo Jima from 25 February through 16 March, and suffered no bodily injury. From his departing ship, McMurray could see the American flag flying over Mount Suribachi. He thinks the portrayal of the raising of that flag has become an icon of American resolve and bravery in World War 2. He left Iwo Jima "elated and depressed," sorry for all the Marines they had left behind. When McMurray returned to Maui, Hawaiian girls placed leis around the necks of the returning Marines. On a five-day furlough, he lived in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for a quarter, and had an interesting adventure. He heard about the fierce battle on Okinawa, with the Kamikaze attacks, and knew the end of the war with Japan was close. He did think, however, that the United States would have to make a landing on one of the main islands. His remaining time in Hawaii was spent in preparation for the next attack.

Everybody in the tent [Annotator's Note: at Camp Maui in Hawaii] with Steve McMurray was listening to the radio when the first atomic bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on 6 August 1945. Three days later another of the wonder weapons that could split atoms was dropped on Nagasaki. He remembered the Russians declaring war and overrunning Manchuria, and figured the Japanese could no longer resist. There prevailed a state of shock, according to McMurray, over these nearly simultaneous events. When the announcement of Japan's surrender came over the radio, he described the scene as "pandemonium." There was a big beer blast, with officers and enlisted men all participating, and having a ball. Many men felt they now had a future. McMurray had the points to go home, but it wasn't until November that he traveled home on the USS Kalinin Bay (CVE-68).

Retracing his steps, Steve McMurray mentioned that on the way back from Iwo Jima he did a lot of pencil portraits of the soldiers. He and two other artists were determined to have themselves made combat artists if they had to attack mainland Japan. They proposed that they would be doing regular duties, plus documenting the battles as an extra job. To that end, he took an art class while he was waiting for the anticipated invasion [Annotator's Note: the anticipated invasion of the Japanese Home Islands]. He was later persuaded to attend the Art Institute of Chicago by one of his teachers. Fortunately, the war ended and he steamed into San Diego to a band playing "Kiss Me Once and Kiss Me Twice" on one of the happiest days of his life. He had written to his family that he was coming home, and traveled by train back to New Orleans, Louisiana. There was a group of family and friends to meet him at the depot, and it was a happy reunion. At this point in the interview, McMurray displays some of his sketches from his tour of duty in the Pacific and on his return to the United States. McMurray eventually got a degree from the Art Institute of Chicago and became an art director at Lengsfield Brothers in New Orleans, Louisiana. He married in 1953 and retired from Lengsfield in 1995. At the end of the interview McMurray explains the details of his recent painting depicting a night battle against the Japanese.