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) |
The
captain’s death
The next day at noon the captain and a jeep driver went into
Aachen, to observe and search for snipers. The captain had
a set of silver wear from a silver shop, a souvenir he wanted.
Returning to the jeep he stepped on a mine and was killed.
The jeep driver brought his body back. When lieutenant Maumus
told me about this I said I would not miss him, but I was
sorry he died that way. I respected him and it was reciproque,
yet he asked my opinion on many things. I said the captain
and I were too close, our conversations were too personal,
but our opinions differed. One event came to my mind. One
day in a towns main street our tank was hit by an anti tank
gun, and machine gun fired on us. We searched the shops on
the street. The captain and I were in a shop looking out the
window, when a woman dressed in navy blue was crossing the
street a block away. The captain yelled out “fire!!”,
and he fired through the broken window, the woman dropped.
Turning to me he said : “you didn’t fire?”.
I said I didn’t, I could not fire at a civilian. He
threatened me with a court martial. Moving out we walked pass
the woman’s body. I pulled off a beer sign off a building
to cover her body. He saw me do it and asked why? I thought
covering her it could mean an accidental killing. From then
I sensed his dislike for me. At my age of 35, I thought like
a 35 year old. There were nights when the captain said : “let’s
hear it from the old man”, jokingly. I was an old man
to him at 25, and many of the men younger than me. If I could
meet the captain’s widow I would say he was a good soldier,
he really was. We stay some days in Aachen, then we moved
toward Stolberg.
A
cigarette with repercussions
There was not much opposition. On the roads there was no civilian
traffic anywhere; occasionally some vehicles of the enemy
that wished they had not been there. There was no motorcycles
or cars anywhere, not even in the streets of large cities
such as Liege. We would ask each other : “doesn’t
anyone own a car? ”. Several times we saw a german convoy
stretching a mile : tanks, trucks, motorcycles, horses and
the wagons they pulled, all were knocked out by our planes
strafing. We came upon a huge german tank, the largest ever
seen. It was off its track. There was some Volkswagen, the
first we have ever seen. We were like a lot of kids, some
of us had to get inside the tank. Some got in and drove the
Volkswagen. One guy got the motorcycle going and spun around
in it. There were dead bodies lying everywhere. It is snowing,
a cold and wet snow as we moved in open land. We pulled back
to three miles away making camp. We felt safe knowing that
the enemy was not behind us. But we kept watch through the
night. During my hour of standing guard, I knew the second
day that when I finished saying three rosaries, an hour would
pass. My third night there was a drizzle. I had a rain coat,
I stopped to light a cigarette under the coat. I struck my
lighter and just then my coat fell off. It was not long after
an artillery shell came in, missing all of us, then another
that fell near us. I never told anyone about the light of
my lighter that brought near disaster. |
