Edward James "Babe" Heffron (16 May 1923-1 December 2013) was a US Army Private First Class who served in Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during World War II.
Biography[]
Edward James Heffron was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1923 to an Irish Catholic family. He worked in shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey before joining the US Army in November 1942 and being trained as a paratrooper. He was assigned to Easy Company as a replacement, and he proved himself during Operation Overlord, Operation Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge, being awarded the Bronze Star for his actions at the Siege of Bastogne. In May 1945, near the Berchtesgaden, he directed the German general Theodor Tolsdorff to Lieutenant Carwood Lipton so that he could surrender to an officer. After the war, Heffron worked at a whiskey distillery before becoming a waterfront worker and co-authoring a book about Easy Company with his friend and neighbor William Guarnere. He died in 2013.