Harry Murray's Medals: VC DSO and Bar DCM 1914-15 Star; War Medal; Victory Medal; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45; King George VI Coronation Medal; Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal; Croix De Guerre; (Separate) CMG.
An Australian, Harry Murray, was the most highly decorated of all the millions of infantrymen who served in the armies of Great Britain and its empire in World War I. He remains the most highly decorated Australian soldier ever.
Murray's ancestors, who included convicts, were early settlers of northern Tasmania. In 1908, Murray was forced to leave the struggling family farm and sought work in Western Australia. At the outbreak of war in 1914, he was cutting railway sleepers in the karri forests of the south-west when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a private soldier in the 16th Battalion. At the end of the war, in 1918, he commanded a machine gun battalion as a lieutenant colonel and had been awarded six decorations, including the coveted Victoria Cross.
Known admiringly throughout the AIF as "Mad Harry" because of his fearlessness in patrols in No-Mans-Land and his ferocity in hand-to-hand fighting, Murray was far from "mad". He planned attacks and trained his men with great care and always sought to avoid casualties.
After the war, Murray led a secluded life on sheep stations in the Queensland bush. He rarely attended Anzac Day services or unit reunions, avoided publicity, and protected his privacy. Little has been known about him. The authors received much help from Murray's family when writing this book and many details of the life and character of Australia's most decorated fighting soldier are revealed for the first time.
