An Overdue Honor: 54 years after death, veteran gets his due
By Victor Chen, Staffwriter
Newsday, Long Island, N.Y., April 3, 1999
His mother beside him, 7-year-old Ron Murdock stood at the train station in Bay Shore and waved goodbye to his father, Edward Murdock, a Merchant Marine captain in the Army Transport Service bound for Italy. It was January, 1945, and war still raged in Europe.
"I knew I wouldn't see him again after that day, the son, now 61, recalled recently from his home in Hobe Sound, Fla. "I just knew it." It was a gut feeling, the guileless premonition of a child.
A few months later, his father died in a B-24 bomber crash near Naples. A month later, his mother, Carolyn Murdock, received a telegram at her Brightwaters home: "The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret..."
But the government that sent the telegram and buried the officer in Italy would soon forget the widow and young son left behind, the Murdock family says. The Veterans Administration refused to pay a $5,000 insurance policy because it claimed Edward Murdock had died while on leave. And when his widow applied under a 1988 federal regulation extending certain veterans privileges to Merchant Mariners, she was told that there were insufficient records to prove his service.
Now, after a half-century, the family says it has finally been vindicated. The combined efforts of Ron Murdock, Merchant Marine veterans and Rep Rick Lazio (R-Brightwaters) have uncovered documents from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis showing that Edward Varick Norman Murdock did indeed serve during World War II.
"If a person did a good deed and served his country as best he could, and apparently he did a good job - he should be recognized and receive an honorable discharge," said Carolyn Murdock, 82, a retired licensed practical nurse who still lives on Long Island. To the people who helped prove her husband's case, she added: "I'm grateful."
But for her son, the years of waiting - with nothing but his memory and hazy photographs to remind him that his father did exist - have left him bitter. "We should have had this many years ago ," he said.According to Julia Coyner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Reserve Personnel Command in St.. Louis, the delay was most likely due to a 1973 fire that destroyed millions of records at a depository in the city.
Murdock's file needed to be reconstructed from microfiche and other sources, she said.
With the information recently uncovered, Lazio's office was able to obtain a letter last month from the National Cemetery Administration stating that Carolyn Murdock can be buried, upon her death, in any national cemetery - her wish for many years. The Army is also providing her with her husband's discharge papers, an official proof of his service and the first step to seeking other benefits.
The family still knows little about the circumstances of Edward Murdock's death. The 28-year-old first officer had been waiting at the base for his next shipping run. Records show that on the day of his death he had been taken up in the bomber, which for an unknown reason crashed into a lighthouse on the island of Capri.But the government denied his widow the insurance payments, and she did not fight it. She instead concentrated on earning a living at various jobs to support her and her son.
"It wasn't easy, no," said Murdock, a private woman who prefers not to talk about the past. "But I'm very independent. I didn't ask for any help. I did the best I could."
In 1988, the Secretary of the Air Force approved veterans status for Merchant Mariners who served during World War II, making them eligible for some benefits. Carolyn Murdock, who had since retired, decided to apply. In 1991 she enlisted the help of then Democratic Rep. Thomas J. Downey, Lazio's predecessor. But the effort went nowhere.
Last year, Ron Murdock took up; the cause. He enlisted the help of Lazio, his Florida congressman, Republican Mark Foley, and veterans such as Matty Loughran, historian of the North Atlantic chapter of the American Merchant Marine Veterans in Bay Shore. The veterans and congressmen finally tracked down the necessary documentation from the Army's files.
There are still some loose ends. Lazio's office is still trying to find any evidence to prove that Edward Murdock was on the fatal plane flight on orders, which would make the family eligible for benefits.
But the fact they can prove he served his country has brought some peace, Ron Murdock said. "It's always the doubt in your mind - is this real, did this happen?"