Billie Cook always suspected she had brothers. She had photos from her father that showed his first wife and the two boys they had sired. They had returned for a visit to their native Germany in 1939. For all Billie knew they had never returned.

Ms. Cook would often question German visitors to her hostel on Mack Blvd. in Fairbanks, Alaska if they had ever heard of a family named Dern. Axel Kubler, a frequent guest at Billies, took it upon himself to call around and connected with an Erhard Dern in Schwalbach who immediately telephoned his uncle Richard who had immigrated to Florida.

Richard Dern, at the age of 72, had had many shocks in his life, but nothing like this. No one had ever mentioned that he had any other siblings, much less that they would be in as remote a place as Fairbanks. “The news exploded our quiet retirement lives in Florida.” stated Richard.

Shortly be united with the sister he never knew existed and would reveal the reason why they had never met- a reason strange enough that an imaginative writer could make a good adventure novel out of it.

The Derns had left Germany because of the awful inflation that ran rampant there in the economic slag pool left behind by WW I. A brother had beckoned them to come to Buffalo, N.Y. where they could make a decent living for themselves.

On July 7, 1939 Mrs. Dern and her two boys booked passage on a ship headed for Hamburg to visit the homeland they had left years before while their father went off to earn his fortunes in Alaska. Once arrived they journeyed down by train to stay with an uncle near Schwalbach, Hessen.

Shortly after their arrival in the Old World Hitler invaded Poland, starting the wild fire of WW II. Despite being U.S. citizens the Derns were not allowed to leave Germany. They had to make the best of their bad situation, helping an uncle out on the farm and becoming apprentices at the famous Leica Camera factory in Wetzlar.

In 1941 Richard was inducted into the ‘Arbeitdienst’, a service for teenage boys to learn military skills. He was shipped down to the sands of Marseilles, France for basic training.

Three months later Richard was put in the ‘Luftwaffe’, the German Air Force in a camp near Brussels, Belgium. The change was a cold wake up call.

The new trainers were experienced fighters who had already seen action in Russia, Poland and France. Many had been wounded, some were missing limbs. The boys had already gotten a taste of hardship at Marseilles, now they would receive instruction form men who had seen the real hell of war.

It was grueling. The harassment the trainers dealt out was strong, so bad in fact that two boys in Richards section committed suicide. They were called cowards and derogatory letters were sent to their parents.

After a further three months of flak training the young men were ordered to trade their uniforms in for felt boots and heavy parkas. They feared they were headed for the dreaded Russian front. When their train went as far as Hannover in the north they breathed a sigh of relief. That meant they were being taken to Norway, a nation already defanged by their military.

The train deposited them at Tromso well above the Arctic Circle to guard a fjord hiding German Naval boats. With summer there came onslaughts from British fighter planes. The German’s cannon fire matched any fire power the English threw at them. With time Richard had engaged in fifteen attacks and was awarded corporal stripes.

A year went by and they were shipped south. A freighter took them to Estonia where they were introduced to a new enemy- the Russians. They were now to be involved in the grimmest conflict of WW II, the Russian Front.

The targets of their cannons changed from enemy aircraft to Soviet T-34 tanks. In the middle of one battle a new monster appeared- the ‘Joseph Stalin’ tank that weighed 60 tons and had a cannon twice the size of the
German’s. It advanced on Richard’s position running over its own dead and wounded. The Stalin got off the first shot, knocking a large tree onto Richard’s cannon, then turned to another cannon nearby. Richard and his colleagues managed to climb out from under the tree, clear it off and hit the tank in its weakest spot before it fired on the other gun.

The war in the east was one of the most miserable campaigns ever recorded. More Germans died from frostbite than war wounds, especially in the winter of 1941. Not only was the often -50 degree weather horrendous but there was the constant threat of partisans who would attack at night knowing the Germans were not yet used to the rigors of Russian winters.

They were eventually pushed back to the port of Libau in Lithuania, a town which became the German’s Dunkirk. They were constantly strafed by Russian planes. One time two Soviet gunships snuck in and started blasting their positions. Richard’s crew sunk one with their cannon while the other ship was crippled by a comrade’s gun. The marksmen were awarded the Iron Cross for their valor, but Richard also spent two days in the hospital with splinters in his leg as a memento of the event.

On May 7, 1945 the terrible war came to an end when beleaguered Berlin surrendered. The next day 25,000 German soldiers on seven ships left Libau for home, not knowing what awaited them there. Of the original 150 men in Richard’s battery, only seven were left alive. Yet the Reaper still wasn’t finished with his harvest. Despite the fact the peace treaty had been signed the day before, three Russian planes strafed the boats taking another thirty five lives.

They surrendered to the British upon entering Germany. For the first five days there was nothing to eat in the POW camp. They were living in tents and had to eat bark from trees. The camp was lightly guarded, so some would steal into a farmer’s yard and slaughter a chicken or even a pig.

Several weeks later Richard was released and put on a train. For the first time he saw the price Germany had paid in the war. Unimaginable destruction was everywhere to be seen. In some of the large cities 80% of the area had been destroyed.

Escaping from the train, Richard walked to Schwalbach. He was relieved to see it was virtually unscathed. His mother came running out to greet him, joyous that he was still alive. She told him that his brother Walter was a POW in Africa. Later he learned that his own father had been drafted in America and could ironically have ended up fighting his own sons.

Trying to find work, Richard was arrested by an American sergeant who was outraged to find that Richard had been an American citizen who had fought on the German side. It did no good to explain that he would have gotten shot had he not, he still ended up in jail.

The stint in jail soon turned into a blessing. A captain in need of an interpreter chanced upon him there and he was hired. The job became a ticket to food and clothing for his mother and him.

Slowly healings took place for all of them. Walter was released and came back. Their mother was able to return to the U.S. in 1947 because she was still legally married to an American. Richard married the same year. On July 11, 1951, twelve years almost to the day they began their odyssey, Richard and his wife got permission to return to the U.S.

Billie first met her half brother in 1997 in Florida. They both had stories to swap of life in cold realms; his- the Russian Front, hers- the frontier life of interior Alaska. “Meeting my brother was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.” said Billie. “He was a polite, warm man and had a memory like a computer.”

Of meeting Billie Richard says, “Billie and I formed a great bond right from the beginning. We were pleased when she could finally come to Florida for a visit where we could exchange our thoughts face to face.”

The long lost brother and sister now keep in touch almost daily by mail and e-mail. Billie has made a second trip down to Florida with three of her children. Unfortunately, poor health keeps Richard from visiting the land of his long lost sister’s birth.

About the Author

Roger Freed

Roger is a writer living and working in Fairbanks, Alaska. This article has appeared in two issues of The Ester Republic in Fairbanks.