A few words posted by moderator Bill D. on the popular Wehrmacht Awards Forum:
"A personal note about who Babe was:
He joined the unit after D-Day.
He made the jump into Holland.
He defended Bastogne.
Although not a drinking man, he had a glass of Hitler's private champagne at Berchtesgaden.
He captured a Panzer corps commander, a recipient of the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, who was unwilling to surrender to a lowly Private like Babe.
Babe took the General's Luger and found someone else for him to surrender to.
He was a brave man who told me that, 70 years after the events of the war, it still came to him in his dreams.
Once, in 1945, Babe and another trooper were engaged in street fighting in Germany.
They came upon a building, apparently a shelter, with no windows, only a door that opened outwards.
They prepared to enter the building in the standard way: open the door, throw in two hand grenades, and then charge in after the grenades exploded.
Babe and his fellow trooper both had their grenades out, preparing to pull the pins when, Babe told me, he heard a clear voice: "Hold the grenades."
He paused, not knowing what was going on, and then he heard the voice again, very clearly: "Don't throw the grenades."
Babe motioned to the other trooper to put down the grenade, as did Babe.
Babe yanked open the door, his gun at the ready.
Inside the room in front of him was a young woman, crouching on the floor, shielding her two small children. Her elderly parents stood behind her.
Babe and the trooper moved on.
But the episiode haunted him, it still came to him in dreams even nearly 70 years later.
"What would have happened if we had thrown those grenades? How would I have lived with myself?", Babe said to me.
The story of what happened evidently made the rounds in the unit.
Babe was asked about it by #### Winters.
Babe said he didn't tell Winters about hearing a voice, only that he had a feeling that he should not throw the grenade.
Winters apparently told that Babe had not followed procedure, but that he had done the right thing by following his instincts.
The incident was depicted in the Band of Brothers series, although it was re-located to France and in the film Babe was not involved.
Babe told me he was a little upset by the way that it was shown (although Babe never saw the full series. As he would put it "Why should I watch it? I was in the original cast!").
Babe was bothered by the depiction because, in the film, the incident occurs and the troopers move on.
But to Babe, it seemed to have been given short shrift.
He was profoundly affected by it for all of his life. "
