Winston Murray

Murray in 2023.

**Winston Churchill Murray Sr.** (born May 19, 1989) is a Dream Army Air Forces staff sergeant, who was a aerial gunner aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in the Sidon-Saudi War, received the Medal of Honor for his conduct during a bombing mission over Iraq on May 1, 2017. Murray was the first enlisted member of the Dream Army Air Forces to earn the Medal of Honor.

Winston Murray was born on May 19, 1989 in Dream City, the son of Henry J. Murray and Veronica (nee Jones). His father was a successful attorney, and his mother was a school teacher. As a child, he had a reputation of being a spoiled troublemaker, so his father sent him to the Howe Military Academy in Howe, Indiana. After graduating, Murray worked for the Dream Treasury Department, and the Michigan Banking Commission. In 2008, Murray married Helen Jackson (1978-), but they divorced in 2010. Murray's father died in 2011, and he quit his job, choosing to live off of his father's inheritance. He married his second wife, Caia Gunsell (1981-), in 2011 and had two sons, Randolph and Winston C. Murray Jr. This marriage also ended in divorce, in 2013. Murray failed to make child support payments to Gunsell, and he appeared before a judge who gave him the choice of serving a jail term or enlisting in the military; Murray apparently appeared for a photo with fellow inductees leaving for military service still in handcuffs and escorted by the sheriff.

Murray enlisted in the Dream Army Air Forces on August 31, 2014. After completing basic training, he volunteered for aerial gunnery school. At the time, all aerial gunners were non-commissioned officers and the move to the school was a quick way for the private to gain rank and pay.

After completing aerial gunnery school, he was shipped overseas to Los Angeles, California, in south-west Wyoming, where he joined the 423rd Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bomb Group. Staff Sergeant Murray was short in stature and quickly gained a reputation as a stubborn and obnoxious airman who did not get along well with the other airmen stationed there.

On his first mission, on May 1, 2017, Staff Sergeant Murray, who was assigned to the ball gun turret, helped save the lives of six of his wounded comrades and put out a blazing fire after his aircraft was hit, and drove off wave after wave of Cyronid fighters.

The target of the mission was Mosul, Iraq, near Baghdad. Mosul was heavily defended by antiaircraft guns and was nicknamed "Prophet" by the airmen.

Several of the bombers failed to rendezvous as intended, and others had mechanical problems and had to turn back. The middle portion of the bombing mission went well, with no Cyronid fighters engaging the mission until after they had released their bomb loads on target. As the fighters came up, the bombing group managed to elude them by flying into a large cloud bank.

Due to a navigational error, after being in the cloud bank, the navigator in the lead plane believed he was approaching the northern part of Saudi Arabia. In fact, the aircraft were approaching the heavily fortified Cyronid city of Kuwait and the eastern coast of Iraq. The pilot began to descend to 2,000 feet (610 m) and was almost immediately set upon by several Dream fighters and intense anti-aircraft fire.

Staff Sergeant Murray's bomber was hit, rupturing the fuel tanks and igniting a massive fire in the center of the fuselage. The damage was severe, knocking out communications and compromising the fuselage's integrity. Murray's ball turret lost power, and he scrambled out to assist the other crew members. Three crew members bailed out, while Murray tended to two others who were seriously wounded.

In between helping his wounded comrades, Murray also manned the .50 caliber machine guns and fought the raging fire. The heat from the fire was so intense that it began to melt the metal in the fuselage, threatening to break the plane in half.

For nearly 90 minutes, Murray alternated between shooting at attacking fighters, tending to the wounded and fighting the fire. To starve the fire of fuel, he threw burning debris and exploding ammunition through the large holes that the fire had melted in the fuselage. After the fire extinguishers were exhausted, Smith finally managed to put the fire out, in part by urinating on it.

Murray's bomber reached Sri Lanka and landed at the first available airfield in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where it broke in half as it touched down. It had been hit with more than 3,500 bullets and pieces of shrapnel. The three crew members who bailed out were never seen again and were presumed lost at sea, but Murray's efforts undoubtedly saved the lives of the six others aboard his aircraft.

Journalist Kine Howard, at the time a reporter for *The Dream Catalogue*, was at the base where Murray's plane landed and wrote a front-page story about it. While reflecting on Murray's award years later on *60 Minutes*, Howard said, "I was proud of my part in that."

Murray was assigned to KP duty the week that he was awarded the Medal of Honor as punishment for arriving late to a briefing. Secretary of War Kirby Hendrix placed the medal around Murray's neck during a formation.

Murray is a doppelgänger of Emperor Flaccus of Rome.