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) |
Signs
of World War One
One afternoon I took a walk to a stone building of which only
the walls stood. The roof was off and what was left was overgrown
with ivy and weeds. An old man from the nearby farm house
approached me, he spoke French. I had to use my French dictionary
to ask questions. He said : “Château-Thierry”.
I looked down and I pointed to the line of the ground that
was a mound and in places a cave in. He said : “trenches”.
I pointed to the large shelled building that once was, he
told me it was a monastery. I could not believe what I was
seeing, it was 25 years ago and it is now like it was then.
There was a lone tree near the old monastery. What a pleasant
surprise, it was an apricot tree. I had my fill and filled
my pockets to pass on. The old man put his arms around me
and said : “merci”, and we parted. We were not
surprised World War One ruins were not cleared away. It was
a very backward country outside, eighty miles from Paris.
No wonder, it was a long walk and they had no way of getting
there. Many of the country roads were barely wide enough for
one horse two wheeled carts. I barged into a small house near
the road to search. A daughter and a mother of 90 were the
only occupants. The old woman hugged me and crying she said
: ”you are the second American in our house, the last
one was here in the last war many years ago”. She was
referring to World War One. That small old house was spared
in two wars.
BELGIUM
The border between France and Belgium
It was beginning of September our company is bringing up the
rear. We had just passed a marker telling us we are living
France coming into Belgium. A shot is fired from our left,
one man is hit. Looking in that direction we see German troops
moving from one wood to another. We all hit the ditch and
fire back. They outnumbered us and we were in open terrain.
I turned around when a man jumped off the NBC van that was
photographing and recording the battle. I told him we might
be captured, I removed my souvenirs and buried them in the
dirt. But twelve of our planes came over strafing the woods,
tthen they held a white flag to surrender. They were told
to come out in small groups of men. In the first group was
an officer who was a doctor. He said there are many wounded,
and asked to go back to look after them. He was driven back
in a jeep to do even minor surgery. The doctor and our medics
worked fast treating their wounded and ours. Many were put
on open trucks to be taken to the nearest hospital in the
field. The commander told me to go out to meet each group
and bring them in groups of fifty to be searched. It was dark
and I was still going out to meet the next group. They brought
out their dead and laid them on a concrete slab that might
have been a floor of a previous building. I count the dead,
there were sixteen of ours and thirty-one of the Germans.
Every prisoner was told to remove clothing to the shirt, some
had more than one coat or jacket. A major had a heavy rain
coat. We searched them for weapons, some had lugers but they
were emptied. We wanted souvenirs and we did take several
watches. The major was removing his watch, I motioned that
I did not want it. He reached inside of his coat and handed
me a thick bundle of French currency. We had all the currency
from the prisoners, I had $ 4 000 of which I gave half to
the captain. Late in the night, after all prisoners were searched,
the company moved in a large building where we stayed until
dawn.
The
liberation of Liege
The morning of September 6 we are nearing the city of Liege.
We split up and all four platoons enter by different streets
covering the entire width, each platoon has one tank. Our
platoon is moving down a street of two storey apartments,
the enemy greets us with shots. We take cover, moving one
doorway to another we proceed searching buildings. I ran up
to the second floor where there are several families gathered;
they assure me that there are no German in the apartment.
A lady handed me a tray of waffles, I take just a few and
leave to move on. Liege is a large city of 100 000 and there
is no one outside, we wonder where the people are. We turn
left toward a bridge. The city is divided by the Meuse river
running through the city, there are six concrete bridges.
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