Edward "Babe" Heffron enlisted and volunteered for the airborne. He volunteered for the paratroopers along with four other men from his neighborhood. Heffron joined along with his friends Buddy Clark, Cianfrani, Joe Fareson and Frank Ritter [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling except for Anthony Cianfrani]. Three men went to the 82nd Airborne Division. They all got banged up. One, Buddy Gilbert, with the 504th [Annotator's Note: 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] was captured in Sicily. Cianfrani was banged up in Holland and Normandy and sent home. Fareson broke his ankle in Normandy with the night jump. Frank Ritter took a machine gun burst at Nijmegen Bridge. They all lived and were sent home. They died over a period of 20 years or so in the States. Heffron was with the guys in jump school, but they went separate ways afterward. Buddy Gilbert was in the 504th Regiment while the others were in the 508th [Annotator's Note: 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (Separate)]. Heffron became a member of the 101st Airborne Division. He was in regimental headquarters but when the division took heavy casualties and needed replacement he was assigned to Company E, 506th [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. It was not a good situation, but he had to do it. He will not quote any of the statements made to him when he entered the company. At first, the men were cool to him and not very receptive. Treatment was all together different after the men got to know him. The men he joined in the second platoon watched each other's back. Bill Guarnere [Annotator's Note: Sergeant William J. Guarnere, also known as Wild Bill] and Squad leader Joe Toye [Annotator's Note: Staff Sergeant Joseph J. "Joe" Toye] were great guys. Toye was the finest soldier Heffron ever met. Chuck Grant [Annotator's Note: Staff Sergeant Charles E. Grant] had the Third Squad was another good man. Sergeant Mercier [Annotator's Note: Kenneth Mercier] was from Philadelphia. They were all good guys who treated him as well as they did any other replacements. Heffron stayed close to a couple replacements. John Julian and J.J. Anderson were his close buddies. There could not have been a better leader than Joe Toye. Heffron was with him when he was hit and stayed with him until he left for good. He was just like Bill [Annotator's Note: Guarnere]. Chuck Grant took a bullet at Berchtesgaden when some crazy bastard shot at him, a guy from the 3rd Battalion. Joe Toye knew what he was doing. Heffron was not so much inspired by him as he took guidance from his actions. Bill Guarnere and Chuck Grant were also men who knew what they were doing. Sergeant Mercier was a good man who lost his life crossing the river in Alsace. The training of the men in the regiment was very good. It was a lot better than any of the army training Heffron received prior to becoming a part of the regiment. Training was the chief asset. It was ongoing. There was no rest for the 506th for official training. The training and experience men obtained were through combat. If there was a hot spot that needed quick action, the 506th was thrown in to control the situation.

Edward "Babe" Heffron jumped into Holland and spent over 78 days there. The jump into the drop zone meant kill or be killed. The mission was to secure the Wilhelmina Canal and Son. The bridge was blown since the drop was not on top of the target. That decision was made much further up the chain of command that the men would be dropped six or seven miles from the objective. By the time they reached it, the bridge over the canal was blown. They secured it and got the tanks over despite every day being hell. There was no peace at all in Holland. Montgomery stretched to a "bridge too far" in his attempt to reach Germany. He planned for the 1st and 6th British Airborne to drop at Arnhem. Eisenhower wanted instead to drop the British at Son with the 101st assigned further north [Annotator's Note: during Operation Market-Garden in September 1944]. No one understood why the decision was made. It must have been political with the intention being to allow the British into Germany first. Heffron only had to look at the map to see the strategy was flawed. The 101st belonged in Arnhem. The British paratroopers should have been connecting with their armor at Son. Heffron was disappointed with the British tankers. The British had to have their tea. It would infuriate the Americans. Heffron could not understand why they were not rushing to Arnhem to save their men who were trapped there. The tank commanders only replied to Winters [Annotator's Note: then Captain Richard "Dick" Winters commanded Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] that they had no orders to go further. They sat and had their tea instead of moving on. Heffron's job was to man the .30 caliber light machine gun. It provided fire support for offense or defense. The tripod was deployed for defense. The gun fit right into his shoulder. It was air cooled. A man fed the belt of bullets into the machine gun that Heffron fired. There were four squads in the platoon with a mortar squad being one of them. They knew each weapon so that they could take them over if someone was hit. When they dropped over Holland, it was a warm sunny day with little enemy fire. One enemy attempt at firing on the approaching aircraft was ended when a P-38 [Annotator's Note: a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] demolished the position. En route before the jump, Heffron was wondering what in the world he was doing there instead of being stateside enjoying a cool beverage. After landing, he helped a fellow with a broken leg. The Dutch people were happy to see the Americans. The paratroopers knew why they were there. No other experience can be compared except for the liberation of Landsberg slave labor camp. The people of France did not react similarly. The Dutch treat the men who wear the Eagle like royalty [Annotator's Note: the insignia of the 101st Airborne Division is a Screaming Eagle]. The men dropped on a Sunday and Bill Guarnere [Annotator's Note: Sergeant William "Bill" Guarnere was Heffron's platoon sergeant] will say that the Dutch called the paratroops "angels" since they were dropping out of the air on a Sunday morning. Most of the Krauts [Annotator's Note: a derogatory reference to Germans] never knew the Americans were there. There was just a handful occupying the area nearby. That was all until they got well situated. At that point, they hit the Americans hard. Prior to that, the objectives were taken with few casualties. Those were mainly due to snipers, mortars and 88mm [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multipurpose artillery] fire. A round from an 88 hit near Heffron and blew out the windows of what appeared to be a department store. Heffron was blown over and hit in the hand by flying glass. He was not seriously injured so he picked up his machine gun and continued his advance. The job of securing the Wilhelmina Canal would have been better accomplished had they been dropped closer to the objective. The fighting toughened up after getting out of Son and into Eindhoven. The Germans were well supplied with tanks, infantry, SS and everything else. German paratroopers even got involved. The battle lasted 78 tough days. Eindhoven was liberated with the intent of keeping "hell's highway" open. Over 200 Dutch civilians were killed when Eindhoven was bombed after the 101st left. Following the escape of 20 or so German prisoners, the men knew that there would be no more prisoners taken. They were not going to worry about escapees again. From Eindhoven, the 101st fought through Best and Veghel on to the Island [Annotator's Note: the Island is Betuwe near Nijmegan].

Edward "Babe" Heffron went to Bastone for his next mission [Annotator's Note: this occurred at the outset of the Battle of the Bulge on 16 December 1944]. The men were not supplied well at all with either clothes or ammunition. It was a bad ride all the way to the front. The Red Ball Express [Annotator's Note: a military convoy system developed during the war in which the vehicles were identified by painted red balls that permitted them priority express passage on the limited functional roadway systems] drove them to their objective. Heffron was clothed in a jump jacket over his fatigue jacket. There was no cold weather clothing for them. They were given burlap bags for their feet. The ice and snow froze on that covering for their feet. The men were soldiers first so there was no detriment to their morale. Even the replacements were good men. They did what they had to do. Heffron taught new replacements what he could. Combat is more personal instinct rather than tactics or training. Killing Germans was the necessity. There was no thought about going home. When the movie "Battleground" came out, Heffron and Bill [Annotator's Note: Sergeant William "Bill" Guarnere] were asked what they thought about the French woman in the Battle of the Bulge. Heffron was quick to remind the interviewer that they were in Belgium not France. It turned out that they were trying to plug Denise Darcel who was the French actress in the movie. The interviewer was put off when Bill answered that they would rather have had a stove or some heat rather than a girl during that battle. The two buddies were cut from the interviews and only had 15 minutes on television. That was alright with them. Fighting in cold weather is not good. There were problems with weapons operations. A person could not get warm or cleaned up. It was five or eight below with 30 mile an hour winds through the trees. Snow accumulation was more than eight feet. The paratroopers were left with nothing in the open fields. If the Krauts [Annotator's Note: a derogatory reference to Germans] would have known the status of their opposition, they would have taken Bastogne. There was not much ammunition. Food was dropped by the 47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft] after the men had been hungry for a couple days. The weather was the worst in 75 years. Digging a foxhole in the woods was difficult with the branches. They did not know where the branches ended. Heffron was there when Bill [Annotator's Note: Guarnere] was hit. Heffron was worried about whether his friend was going to make it, but he had to carry on as if it was just another guy. A Polish guy cried hard when Bill Guarnere got hit. He could be heard at night. He had to be cautioned to calm down his noise. The artillery barrage at Foy was triple what was seen on television [Annotator's Note: a reference to the HBO series "Band of Brothers" which was based on a book by author Stephen E. Ambrose]. The memory lingers on in Heffron's mind.

After the Battle of the Bulge, Edward "Babe" Heffron continued fighting into Alsace-Lorraine then Dusseldorf and on to Hitler's home. They [Annotator's Note: the members of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] were largely decimated by the previous combat. Manpower was short as was equipment and supplies. They had no opportunity to shower until they returned to Mourmelon in France after they got back from Holland. That was where they got their first hot food. Everyone had dysentery for days. That caused severe pain in addition to creating problems trying to get replacements up to speed for combat. Either the food was sabotaged or the men's digestive system could not take the hot food. There were two potential versions of what happened. The illness ran its course after about four days of medication provided by Roe [Annotator's Note: Technician 4th Grade Eugene G. "Doc" Roe, Sr. was an medic in Company E]. Even being sick, the men were required to go out every day with the replacements. From Dusseldorf, the troops traveled by highway using amphibious DUKWs to reach Heidelberg. They traveled on to the Eagle's Nest where Hitler had one of his homes. They kept pushing on to the end of the war. They passed through the town of Heidelberg where the burgermeister had previously killed his wife and three children then committed suicide. It was a beautiful town. The story is in the book [Annotator's Note: Heffron and Easy Company buddy Sergeant William "Wild Bill" Guarnere co-authored "Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends: Two WWII Paratroopers from the Original Band of Brothers Tell Their Story"]. Heffron stayed focused on doing his job all through those days. There was no sense of accomplishment after taking Berchtesgaden. They were just doing their job and did not stay there long. They moved on to Austria and occupied that area for a few days. Then the outfit moved to Caprune [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] where they stayed for a couple of months before going to Joinne [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling], France where they made their last jump. The only man that they hated was the soldier that shot Chuck Grant [Annotator's Note: Staff Sergeant Charles E. Grant was 3rd Squad leader in Company E and was shot by a fellow paratrooper near Berchtesgaden]. The shooter was from the 3rd Battalion. He was drunk and had raped a German girl and killed a British major. Grant was sergeant of the guard that night. He went to investigate a shot and that was when the guy shot him. Grant never fully recovered from the wound. He was not the same guy after the war. He was extremely crippled. The men of Easy wanted to kill the man but were told not to punish him because it was uncertain that he had actually fired the shot at Grant. The man is probably still walking the streets somewhere. Heffron would have shot the son-of-a-bitch without any problem. Death was all around. Every soldier figured death was part of fighting. Heffron only wondered if it would be him next.

Edward "Babe" Heffron felt good about being in the airborne with the best unit he could have joined [Annotator's Note: Heffron was a member of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. He was with some exceptional paratroopers such as Bill Guarnere, Joe Toye and Chuck Grant [Annotator's Note: Sergeant William J. Guarnere, Staff Sergeant Joseph J. "Joe" Toye, and Staff Sergeant Charles E. Grant]. He had it good with those guys. They were a main reason he came home. Toye was a man's man and a soldier's soldier. He deserved all the accolades he received. When Heffron returned home, some of his friends had already had their homecoming. Everybody did their duty back then. He had four or more jumpers right on the same corner where he lived. Unlike today, it was a patriotic country at that time. Civilians knew what the veterans had to go through and supported them 100 percent. They knew the troops had to do what they did, and they loved them for it. It was not like the men returning from Vietnam where the liberals did not appreciate them. Heffron hopes those liberals see his interview. He does not like anyone who tears the country down. Heffron's combat experience had little impact on him except it prevented him from working at a job while he was away. He helped financially support his mother. The heroes of the Second World War were not the troops but their mothers. That goes for the whole world and not just for Americans. Women in foreign countries cry also. The Holocaust deniers should come to Heffron. Mel Gibson's father was a denier of not only the Holocaust but man landing on the moon. Heffron wishes that he would talk to him. Heffron does not talk about the Holocaust. There were so many nations that refused to help the people who ultimately suffered in Europe. Some refugees even came via boat to the United States before the war but were turned away. After passing through the concentration camp and reflecting on what he had experienced during the war, Heffron feels that it was all worthwhile. Even dropping the atomic bomb was a good thing. If it had not been dropped, Heffron would not be giving this interview. His outfit would have been the first ones being killed. The men were ready to jump into Tokyo or wherever they were told to do so. It would have been an impossible task, but it would have had to be done. The men had already been told to be ready to go to Japan. They would have had a short leave at home then retraining and refitting with additional replacements provided prior to their jump into the Pacific. Heffron challenges the liberals to tell him that the bombs should not have been dropped. He has strong opposing thoughts. Some of their own relatives and even those opposing the bombings would not be here today had the bombs not been used. Heffron wished they had dropped 30 of them. The extra monthly pay for airborne did not sway him into joining. The money meant nothing to him. He wasted that much when he gambled. He sent 20 dollars a month to his mother to help her. He was in the airborne for the excitement. He was 18 at the time he enlisted and celebrated his 19th birthday while in service. He was discharged when he was 22. There was a lot of difference between individuals who had gone to war and those who did not. The veterans could tell, but it was not obvious to those who did not face combat. Sitting at a bar, it would be obvious whether a man had seen warfare or not. Sometimes a name would be mentioned, and a fellow would get a blank look on his face. It was not just the look but the way he would say goodbye before he left. Heffron knew the individual was thinking about something. Other combat veterans could read Heffron's reactions in the same way. It was apparent when a man was thinking back. Heffron was 84 years old at the time of the interview. World War 2 history is finally being treated the way it should be. Youngsters today should learn what it was all about. When Heffron and his special friend, Arlene, go on a tour, he is happy to see young, married people accompany the group. They are in their 20s and 30s and are into the details of his experience. It gives him a lift because someone cares about the Jim Coyles, the Joe Toyes, the John Julians and guys like that [Annotator's Note: fellow Company E buddies] who are no longer here. Bill Guarnere and other guys go everywhere they are invited. Heffron does not accept all invitations, but he likes to go to the schools and talk to the youngsters. Guarnere especially enjoyed talking to the young people. The reason for the upsurge in interest in World War 2 is because the children of veterans are seeing the History Channel and learning about what their parent did. They want to learn more about it so they give Heffron and others a telephone call to attempt to find out more. Heffron advises them to get a book or buy the movie to learn more. After they do so, they tell their children about what went on. Survival was the most important thing he learned in combat. Instinct and luck was a big part of making it through the fighting. A random shell could fall in your foxhole and end your days. The people who did not have to fight were very lucky. They should thank God they did not have to fight. Friends who were 4F [Annotator's Note: a physical deferment from service] feel they did not do their part. Heffron tells them that they should feel lucky. Otherwise, they would be looking for missing friends and mourning lost buddies. Heffron wanted to get into the fighting, but he did not want to get out until the conflict was over and finished. He knew he would get out of the service in due time after the war ended. He had all his limbs and was able to go to work when he returned home. He was fortunate. He could have still been lying over there.

Edward "Babe" Heffron was looking forward to reuniting with a couple of broads [Annotator's Note: females] upon his return home. One of them, Claire, might have married him, but she died of consumption [Annotator's Note: tuberculosis] a year after his return. There was no cure at the time. Individuals would be sent to a place in Pennsylvania called Eagleville. People with the ailment would be separated from their loved ones and sent there to avoid contact with others. Heffron was there when she died. She said her passing meant they would never get married. He told her she would recover, but the girl's mother was behind her nodding side to side to indicate she would not. Heffron had brought the girl a German sword with diamond chips in it. He gave it to her and said he brought that to her instead of the dead German he had promised her. She died the next day. She was only 18 years old. She was four years younger than Heffron. He used to enjoy dancing with her. He has missed her all his life. He thinks of what could have been. She was a beautiful red head girl. He never thought she would go for him with his looks [Annotator's Note: the memory of this loss is emotionally taxing on Heffron]. There was a girl in the concentration camp about that age. She had similar features as his girlfriend. She was praising the Americans as her saviors. Heffron would never forget the incident. His Jewish buddy named Eddie Stein was with him. They marveled at what man had the potential to do to his fellow man. The same thoughts ran through Heffron's mind while at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge when the Germans were bombing the city at Christmas time. The girl in the slave labor camp was young and attractive. A Polish slave laborer came over and said to Heffron, "Schöne" which means beautiful in Jewish or German. The Pole went on to tell Heffron that the girl was the German officer's favorite. Heffron never got over that. Eddie Stein broke down when he heard that. All his efforts in the war were worth it. The people who were occupied were freed as a result. They express gratitude but Heffron just felt he was doing his job.