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) |
| Order
is an order
One morning we were given order that we have never been given
before. Commander Simon spoke to us : “there are no
rations, you all know that. So the order for today is no prisoner,
is it understood ?” No one asked any questions. By noon
that day we were crossing open terrain, in a grassy and weedy
area. We spread out moving in. Every man was told to keep
in sight the man to the left and right of you. We moved in
this grassy area that was shoulder high. Somehow our squad
became separated from the others, and we were pinned down
by enemy machine gun fire. Sergeant Eddie was on the left
flank, I was on the right. We hit the ground crawling and
trying to get away from that gun. I came face to face with
a German. He dropped his rifle and put his hand over the head,
I ordered him to lay down on his stomach. Golly ! That kid
couldn’t have been more than sixteen, he was scared.
I was sick thinking that I had a prisoner. I got him up and
motioned to move on. In sign language and german he seemed
to be directing me to the right, out of the machine gun range.
I whistled and sergeant Eddie and others moved in our direction.
When sergeant Ed saw what I had he said : “Jesus, Micki,
why ?” I said I couldn’t fire then and give away
our position. I couldn’t shot him then. We came to a
narrow dirt road where we looked at each other, no one was
saying anything. Eddie said : ”we all know the order
of the day”. He took a hand full of dry grass that he
broke into short pieces. The shortest straw will do it, he
said. The prisoner was on his stomach through this. The prisoner
was told to walk to the tall grass. A shot was fired and the
soldier loser came back, no one questioned him. Did he or
did he not ? Moving along on a two lane paved road with our
rifles slung over shoulder, we see about thirty German unarmed
with their hands over head. They were calling out loud, but
we just keep moving. The captain said : “ignore the
bastards”. They stared at us bewildered, we just kept
moving on. No doubt they knew we were not alone, and we were
well in their country.
A Hill Billy
G. I.
One morning, in a wooded area we were combing, we were shot
at. The shot came from the brush ahead from someone we did
not see. This guy we called Hill Billy and I kept shooting
back toward the brush. A call of “comrade” was
heard. I saw a wounded german dragging himself holding a white
cloth. I said : “hold your fire”. As the german
was getting closer, Hill Billy fires one shot into his head.
I thought, a killer or trigger happy. After that we came out
of the woods into a narrow dirt road. There was a small stone
house on a hill; just where the road turned. I saw an old
man in the window overlooking the road. A shot was fired and
I saw the old man drop. Hill Billy struck another target.
I didn’t want to be near and with this guy.
To be continued in December |
