“Race To Resurrection: A WWII Historical Thriller”

Northstate author Doug Aiken “started writing in his sixties…. His father served in WWII and while he returned home, he died a few short months later,” leaving Aiken, according to an author’s note, with “a ghost for a parent and a lifetime of unanswered questions.” So, over almost a decade, he imagined the fragments of history he had about his father showed not a mythical hero but rather a complicated man far removed from myth.

The invasion of Normandy in June 1944 did not end the war in Europe, yet D-Day was a turning of the tide toward an Allied victory. Aiken imagines a young man, Lieutenant Henry Anderson, contributing his part in a super-secret operation beginning in 1943. He abandoned his pregnant wife for the good of the cause and, decades after the war, returned to Wisconsin under the strangest of circumstances to introduce his son, now grown, to the father he never knew.

The story is told in “Race To Resurrection: A WWII Historical Thriller” ($14.99 in paperback from RO Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle). Germany’s V-2 rocket program at Peenemünde, being developed by scientists including Wernher von Braun, threatens the Allies with destruction. Security at the facility is overseen by SS-Oberführer Wolfgang Korbach and, it turns out, Henry Anderson, who speaks fluent German taught him by his grandmother, looks exactly like Korbach.

The plan is Mission Impossible audacious: Spend weeks training Anderson to “become” Korbach, matching all his little behavioral quirks, and then, since Korbach was recovering from shrapnel wounds at a facility in Portugal, switch him out, so that the Korbach that returned to Peenemünde was really Anderson. Against all odds, it works. Though Korbach is a notorious womanizer, Anderson vows to remain true to his wife and son, though she had been told he had been killed. Yet all bets are off when he meets 23-year-old French national co-worker Angelique Dubois.

The ethical quandary will hold readers spellbound in this mesmerizing tale which, 45 years later, will see Henry, and Wolf, show up in Wisconsin at Henry’s grandson’s wedding, each claiming to be the real Henry. 

Full of surprises, Aiken has written an unputdownable tale.

Three military pilots, one from Paradise

Paradise author B.J. Bryan tells the story of World War II with a personal touch in “Escape With A Silent Roar: A Trilogy of Three World War II Pilots Including A P-38 Fighter In Combat Missions Over Europe” ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also Amazon Kindle format).

The first chapter, “Thunder From The South,” is the story of Col. Richard E. Clark whom the author met in Paradise. “He brought with him a cassette tape of something he wanted me to hear. He requested that I not listen to it or write his story until he had passed on. I agreed.”

Bryan writes that “the tape was about his experiences flying his plane over Northern Italy.” It was late in 1944; “I was in the 20th Bomb Squadron of the 2nd Battle Group, 15th Air Force,” Clark’s voice says. He made it out in one piece, but loud noises still made him shake. “He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Silver Star.”

“My Adventures In Greece” is a first-person account by Edward W. Smythe which makes up most of the book. His target was an installation about 20 miles north of Athens, “well protected by concentrations of both mobile and stationary anti-aircraft batteries.”

What’s it like to be hit? “There was a shattering explosion just below my feet. I was afraid to look down at them. When I did, I saw the rudder pedals twisted at an odd angle. … ‘Navigator-to-pilot! Bombardier hit bad. He’s—he’s—Flak! Big hole in— … Pilot-to-crew! Abandon ship. Bail out! We are afire!” And that’s only the start of the story, which involves escape and, on January 30, 1944, rescue.

Finally, William “Bill” Burns tells the story of “A P-38 Fighter Combat Mission Over Europe,” a gripping first-hand account. We must not forget, Bryan writes: “History does repeat itself.”

The author will be signing copies of the book at the VFW Craft Fair this Saturday, March 8 from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the Paradise Veterans Hall. A book event will also be held at Lyon Books in Chico March 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Letters from wartime California

"For over 50 years," writes Gridley resident Joan Brock, "Rigmor, my grandmother's niece, lovingly kept Helga's notebooks safe in her home in Copenhagen." Those notebooks contained letters that Helga, then living in Palo Alto, wrote to her family in Denmark during World War II. Because of the Nazi occupation the letters could not be mailed, but Helga continued to write them anyway, filling five notebooks during wartime. "Rigmor told me she had saved these letters and wanted to give them to me, but she just could not bear to part with them." Eventually she made copies and sent them to Brock "in 2005, just prior to her death. I found the letters so compelling, I published them."

The collection, lightly annotated, is called "My Dear, Dear Rigmor: Helga's Letters Written During WWII" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats). Nancy Wiegman interviewed Joan Brock for Nancy's Bookshelf, which airs on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m.; the archive is found at http://goo.gl/BMMB0.

Helga's letters are a profoundly human mix of family minutiae and geopolitical reflections. "Coffee goes on rationing next week--one pound per person from 15 years old and up--every 5 weeks. That's still enough" (November 25, 1942). "For the first time, millions of people in the U.S. are paying income tax" (March 12, 1944). "All the years I lived here, I can't see a good-looking head of cauliflower, that [I] don't want it, and every time I do buy it, I am disappointed. It never did taste good like they did at home" (May 14, 1945).

She grieves for her family in Denmark. Her characterizations of the Germans and Japanese (especially the Japanese) are brutal. December 7, 1941 is seared in her memory. "But that was their first mistake, that unforgettable sneak punch, because it united every man, woman, and child in the United States. And believe me, nobody in the world can fight us down. This is still the land of liberty, the land of the free, and will always be so." Her surviving son, Ralph, is fighting overseas; her thoughts are never far from him.

Helga is by turns resolute, cranky, tearful, opinionated, patriotic. In this book she still speaks.