Alphonsus Hickey

Private Alphonsus Hickey, MID

Cape Breton Highlanders | F/32124 | 1920–1944

Private Alphonsus Hickey was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on 29 April 1920, the son of Alphonsus and Euphemia Hickey. He enlisted at Sydney on 18 August 1942 and served with the Cape Breton Highlanders, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, during the Second World War. Veterans Affairs Canada records his rank as Private, his service number as F/32124, and his unit as the Cape Breton Highlanders.

Hickey served in the Italian campaign, where the Cape Breton Highlanders fought as part of the hard struggle through the German defensive positions in central Italy. In April 1944, he was wounded during fighting in Italy and spent nearly a month recovering in hospital. A surviving portrait of him was taken around April or May 1944, shortly after this period of recuperation.

His final action came on 30 August 1944 during the fighting for Hill 120 near Montecchio, in the opening phase of the Gothic Line battle. During a failed attack, Hickey’s company was forced to withdraw under heavy German fire. Hickey voluntarily remained behind with his Bren gun to cover the retirement of his comrades. By holding his position alone, he bought time for others to escape. When the hill was taken the following day, his body was found near the position he had defended. Accounts state that he was found surrounded by German dead, evidence of the determined stand he had made.

Private Hickey was killed in action on 30 August 1944. He was 24 years old. He is buried in Montecchio War Cemetery, Italy, grave I.D.13.

For his courage, Alphonsus Hickey was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches. Many of his comrades and family later believed that his action had warranted a higher award, but because the battalion’s attack had failed to achieve its objective, no greater decoration followed.

In the Waterman and Vokes project, Hickey matters because his story cuts straight to the heart of the problem: courage was not absent in Italy, but recognition often depended on whether the wider operation could be made to look like success. Hickey’s stand was the plainest kind of battlefield heroism: no speech, no ceremony, no expectation of survival. He stayed behind so others could live.

Citation / recognition: Mentioned in Despatches — represented on the War Medal 1939–1945 ribbon by a bronze oak leaf emblem.