• The most highly decorated soldier in the Empire in WW1.
  • The most highly decorated Australian ever.
    • Rose though the ranks from Private to Lieutenant Colonel

13th Battalion AIF 

Maj Murray was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) as a Captain (Capt) for "most conspicuous bravery" on 4 - 5 February 1917 at Stormy Trench, France. 

Capt Murray led his company in an attack and quickly captured the enemy position, fighting back three heavy counter attacks by the enemy. 

He encouraged his men, led bombing and bayonet parties and carried wounded men to safety. 

He landed at Gallipoli as a Private on 25 April 1915 and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) in June 1915. 

He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in March 1918 and in May 1919 was created a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). (Donor R. Arman)

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT. C. 1916-08. Second Lieutenant Henry William (Harry) MURRAY DCM, 13th Battalion AIF.  

Harry Murray, an Australian, 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 1. 

• 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.

He was 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. 

An interesting snippet taken from an Australian newspaper dated Friday 27 June 1919 and headed 'Volunteers for Russia - Officers in the Ranks' mentions that Lieutenant-Colonel Harry W Murray VC, 13 Inf Bn, AIF 'The greatest individual Australian fighting man,' offered to enlist to fight the Bolsheviks in Russia, but upon being told that he would have to begin with the rank of private, decided not to proceed with enlisting.

.

Email