Frank Murphy was 19 years old, a sophomore at Emory University, when he enlisted with the U.S. Army Air Corps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Less than two years later, Murphy's B-17 bomber was shot down over Europe. He was imprisoned in a POW camp - Stulag Luft III, the same prison from the film The Great Escape - for the remainder of the war.
Murphy survived and returned home after Germany's surrender. He finished college, got married, had four children, and had a full life. It was only later that he wrote down his story. And his granddaughter, Chloe Melas, a reporter for CNN, has made it her mission to make sure more people see it.
"He wrote a book for the family called "Luck of the Draw." He self-published it with a small publisher friend of his, and he would just pass them out to anybody that would take it," Melas told WWL's Tommy Tucker. "Now here I am as a journalist, and I really got interested in his story in my 20s. And I've made it my mission for several years to publish this story with a real big ol' publisher. And here we are."
Murphy was on his 21st mission when his plane was shot down. Two of his crewmembers died that day. The seeming randomness of who survived and who didn't led to the title of the book. "He said, 'you know, a bullet either had your name on it or it didn't. It came down to luck of the draw,'" Melas said.
Melas and her family aren't profiting off the sale of the book either. "Every single sale of the book, every dollar, every penny goes to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah and the 100th Bomb Group Foundation," Melas said.
"Luck of the Draw" is also being adapted by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as part of a new Apple TV+ miniseries "Masters of the Air." British actor Jonas Moore is playing Murphy and actually narrated the audiobook as well.
Melas is accepting an award on behalf of her grandfather and hosting a talk about the book later today at the National World War II Museum. You can find details here.