Edward J. Higgins

Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army

Serial Number: 32958834

Unit: 9th Infantry Division

Hometown: Collingswood, New Jersey

Died: March 2, 1945, Died of Wounds, Germany

Buried: New St. Mary’s Cemetery, 515 West Browning Road, Bellmawr, New Jersey

Awards: Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster

Private First Class Edward J. Higgins was born in Pennsylvania in 1916 to Joseph and Maria R. Higgins. The family bought a home at 333 Cattell Avenue in Collingswood, NJ in 1929. Besides Edward, the oldest son, there were brothers Frank and Joseph Jr., and sisters Mary, Claire, and Theresa. Maria R. Higgins passed away in 1936.

A member of the 1937 class of Collingswood High School, Edward Higgins had enlisted in the Army in October of 1940, and had served for a year before being honorably discharged with the rank of Sergeant a year later. In October of 1944, he was drafted back into the Army. He reported on November 12, 1944, and after brief stays at Camp Shelby, MS, Fort Sill, OK, and Camp Carson, CO, was sent overseas a month later. He was wounded in action in Belgium, and received the Purple Heart. He died as a result of wounds on March 2, 1945, in Germany.

Edward Higgins had been a member of St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church in Camden, NJ, where a Mass was said for him when word reached home of his death. His body was returned to the United States after the war, and he was buried at New St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bellmawr, NJ on November 22, 1947, next to his mother, sister Mrs. Theresa Hanson, who had died the previous year, and sister Mrs. Claire McKee, who passed in 1945. Edward Higgins was survived by his father, Joseph M. Higgins, of the Cattell Avenue address, brothers Joseph Jr. and Francis E. Higgins, and sister Mrs. Mary Duffy.