Heppenheim

On March 27, 1944, SSgt. Edward J. O’Rourke, exposed himself to enemy mortar fire and killed several enemy soldiers. He then exposed himself to enemy mortar fire again, crawled 25 yards to a road, stood in the middle of it and fired at a range of 75 yards, killing 4 of the enemy and wounding one, allowing his company to advance. I know this because I have a copy of the General Order authorizing his award of the Silver Star. Based on the information I have, it happened somewhere in this picture.

Heppenheim is a quaint little town untouched by the bombing that ravaged much of the other nearby cities: Mannheim, Frankfurt and Essen. I have a different feeling here than I did in Kaysersberg. This is Germany, enemy territory, and I am a little weary of mentioning the war or asking about monuments. The people are all friendly, they smile, wish you good day, they are no different than people anywhere, yet it just has a different feel for me than Kaysersberg. I took a lot of the old part of Heppenheim as it is ground my father may have walked on around a church he may have prayed in. I will cram in as many as I can.

The castle ruins from where I took the overhead shots of the town is on a high hill on the western end of Heppenheim. It dominates the area. Thankfully, it has an easy to find road that goes almost all the way up. There is a 200 meter walk from the parking lot up an access road ( God bless the Germans). The main tower has a spiral staircase to the top, affording a tremendous view of the surrounding area. There is no admission charge, no attendants. In fact, the only person we saw that came even close to looking official was a kid in an apron that gave us directions to the soda machine. We had each purchased a piece of wurst and sausage at the meat shop and a Kaiser Roll at the bakery and had lunch on a wall over looking the town. It began to sprinkle a bit just as we finished, so we trucked down to the car and bid Heppenheim auf veiderzane.

We spent the rest of the day in Heidelberg, another very picturesque place that wasn’t bombed.

Give Dave a uniform, he good for another 100 miles.