Band of Brothers: Wild Bill and Babe

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

William "Wild Bill" Guarnere and Edward "Babe" Heffron were South Philly neighbors, good friends, and two of the WWII Band of Brothers, who had fought from D-Day to the end of the war. They died, age 90, within four months of each other.

Both lived long enough to be puzzled by their fame when the Band of Brothers mini-series was broadcast in 2001. The city wanted to erect statues of the two as young men, but Wild Bill's family was against it; he had lost one leg in the war, and that's how they wanted him to be remembered. So in 2015 the city unveiled a statue of Babe, while the family unveiled a separate statue, elsewhere, of one-legged Wild Bill.

Four years later the family reconsidered, and in 2019 a young two-legged Wild Bill was added beside Babe.