John F. Mickey was American, he was 35 in 1944 and lived in Michigan. He did enlisted in september 1943, he thought he could do some "job" in this war. When he enlisted he was not expected for that kind of life : the long separation from loved one, the horror of war, and even hunger and thirst. All along the fightings he took notes, and many years later he decided to write about sixty pages. John F. Mickey passed away in 1989. With his son's permission, his memories are told there. It is the experience of a "common" man who believed in some human valours, and who fight for them from the beaches of Normandy to the Hurtgen forest, in Germany, where he had been wounded.
(John F. Mickey's memories - 1944/1945)

Arriving to Camp Hidden
Our ship anchors in Liverpool, we stay on ship the night and next day until dark when we get off in a fog so thick we could not see a block ahead. We walk to the tracks where a train is waiting for us. The coach we board has small compartments about five feet wide. There are two seats facing each other, room for six sitting up, no room to lie down. It seems like we are riding the train all night. The sound of the whistle and the sound of the “clicketyclack” of the rails is foreign all right. There is nothing to see with the windows being blacked out, everyone is tired wanting to get some sleep. Somehow we dozed off and we are not aware of the time. The train stops in a village at dawn, we get off and walk to waiting busses. We are dressed warm with our wool under shirts and wind breaker jackets and we feel the chill of the dampness on the island. People are standing outside by their homes waving as we pass by. It is march 3, the geraniums flowers are in bloom. The houses of stone and brick are overgrown with ivy and the stone fences are also. This country is picturesque, everything is plush green this early in the year. I just had to see how the ivy clings to the houses with tiny suction cup that glued to the wall. Travelling quite a distance we arrive to Camp Hidden, it has been readied for us by the black Corps of engineers who were there long before us. The camp is situated on some wealthy owners property, there is a forty room mansion in the back ground. The grass is weed less by the shepherds, we wonder how they keep so much grass mowed. The tents set up for us are large enough for eight to ten bunks. The walks are gravel and we are told to never walk on the turf. Signs spaced close together remind us to stay off the green. The turf taken from the walks is neatly stacked to be replaced some day in the future. There are trenches dug between the tents, they are four feet deep and we don’t quite know what they are for. The only wood buildings are in the center, they are the latrines and to get to them, we also have to stay on the walks. It is a long way to the potty and no short cut allowed to get there. Early in the morning we see men loading the pots on a flat bed wagon of bicycle wheels. They move them to a well dug for that purpose. We don’t know who is assigned to the latrine duty but some soon find out. Those gold brickers reporting for sick call, and assigned to quarters for light duty, find themselves feeling better after one day lifting ten gallons pets. The camp grounds are inspected by two men on horse back who see that everything is in order as agreed by the owner of the land and the U. S. Government. Simoni from Michigan who was asthmatic had reported for sick call often, he had spent more time on the latrine brigade than anyone else. I never reported for sick call, I would rather die than assigned to that sort of light duty. We did not do any of that basic training stuff, we did exercise and keep fit and became better acquainted with our rifles. It seemed that we were ever ready for a call out. It was not long we found out what the trenches were for, german planes came over the night of Mothers Day and we hit the ditch. They would come over almost the same hour of the night to drop bombs. Some got away but many were not so lucky and were shot down. We were in the trenches watching the action in the sky, the British were ready for them, their powerful flood lights lit up the sky. They would get the plane in focus and shoot it down, one landed close to camp. We cheered like a bunch of kids seeing plane after plane shoot down.
( to be continued in June magazine : assigned to the Big Red One - D Day)

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