The Audie Murphy National Fan Club has operated on and off since the 1950's under different managing editors. The fan club was a great source of news, stories, personal accounts, opinions, and memorabilia on Audie Murphy.

Unfortunately, the amount of research, writing, editing, and physical labor required to keep the organization running was enormous and done on a strictly voluntary basis. Over the years, the club editors became harder to find and eventually, the organization ceased to exist at the end of 2000.

Audie Leon Murphy Photo provided by Ms. Eva Dano

The organization was founded on May 25, 1952 by Ms. Margaret Walters, a secretary from Charleston, West Virginia. The organization had several hundred members and published a monthly mimeographed booklet that was about twenty to twenty five pages in length. The title of the booklet was "Audie's Almanac." Audie wrote a monthly description of his next month's activities in each newsletter. While other clubs may have existed, the booklet put out by Ms. Walter's carried the message "The Only Official Audie Murphy Fan Club" along the bottom of the front cover (Simpson, pp.286-287). It is unknown when this version of the club ceased.

After Audie's death, the organization was resurrected when Kathleen Bailey of Lamirada, California, wrote a letter in 1972 to Rhona Barrett's magazine requesting other fans of Audie to contact her and share their memories and stories of the World War II hero-actor. The letter was printed in April, 1972 and soon people started to write and the fan club began as a joint effort between Kathleen and her mother, Lillian Bailey. While it is undetermined how long this version of the fan club lasted or when it folded, the mother-daughter editors co-authored a magazine article in Nostalgia World entitled To Hell And Back and stated that they were in their seventh year as a fan club and had published 44 newsletters.

In the mid 1990's the club was again reformed under the leadership of editor Stan Smith. Stan Smith was one of the club's most prolific editors and a highly regarded military historian and Medal of Honor expert. He has since retired from his duties at the end of the year 2000. Fortunately, he generously made available the newsletters he was responsible for during his tenure as editor. While dated, they are still interesting and loaded with facts and information. These newsletters are genuine treasures and make for fun reading.

To download these newsletters, just click on any of the buttons in the table to the right. All are in PDF file format. Most are small. A few are large and will take a short period of time to download.