My Adventurous Friend: A Lifetime of Choices and Outdoor Alaska Adventures

By Douglas, Anderson

My Adventurous Friend is based on accounts of my friend Hagen's life, as he related it to me, and of the adventures we enjoyed together in Alaska. We would reminisce while sitting around a campfire in some wilderness area during our hikes and gold prospecting ventures. We could be debating current events and somehow our talk would drift back to events of earlier times. Over the years, piece by piece, I learned almost everything there was to know about my friend. Hagen had a varied and adventurous life beginning in wartime Germany and, by a circuitous route, eventually migrated to Alaska in 1973. Hagen had a longing for adventure and was never satisfied with the status-quo. He was strong, tenacious and once his mind was made up he would seldom deviate. In his mind, if it wasn't difficult then it wasn't worth doing. He always said he was born one hundred years too late to be a real pioneer but he sure did his best to emulate them. Hiking to our gold claim—forty miles from the nearest gravel road—and making it there alone in the dead of the Alaska winter was almost enough to satisfy his craving for adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781594335792

Douglas, Anderson

Douglas Anderson was born in Derbyshire, England. After his father passed away Douglas went to live on his Grandfather's farm. Never very interested in animal husbandry, Douglas leaned more toward the mechanical aspects of farming, maintaining machinery and the like. After an apprenticeship in the mechanical field, Douglas joined Rolls-Royce and began an interesting and diverse career. In ensuing years that career involved: aircraft jet engines, rocket engines and industrial gas turbines. Douglas immigrated to Canada in 1967, to Alaska, USA in 1977 and back to Canada in 2001. His years spent in Alaska, flying, hiking and prospecting and enjoying other outdoor adventures with his friend Hagen Gauss prompted him to start writing.

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portrayed.

Chapter 1

Home Town Germany

In the early nineteen forty’s Bad Urach was a just a sleepy medieval town located twenty miles south east of Stuttgart It was a small town, dating back to the 1400s,situated in a narrow valley surrounded by steep hills. Lacking in significant industry it would seem to be an unlikely target for allied bombers.

Bad Urach, Germany—Historical view.

Anna Gauss lived near the center of the old town. She was an artist with considerable talent and able to work at a small printing company on the south side of town. It had been taken over by the Reichs Versorgungs Minesterium Amt. (The Reich Ministry of Supply) and she was employed in checking the quality – not accuracy – of manufacturing blueprints. Her husband Erick—a sergeant in Wehrmacht Heeresgruppen South—was away fighting in some unknown location, so it seemed like it was the least she could do to help the war effort and the Reich gave people little choice.

Life was not easy in Germany: Reich programs were in place and many aspects of daily life were closely regulated under Gleichschaltung—stern regimentation and conformity laws. Most staples were severely rationed but a little income helped to make daily life a bit easier. Anna had to make many sacrifices. For one, she had to leave three young children at home in the care of a girl who was herself only twelve years of age.

Bad Urach did not seem like the kind of place that would attract the attention of the allies. Why waste bombs on such a small sleepy town known for its spa and classic buildings more than anything? However, Stuttgart to the north-west had been bombed repeatedly and there had been many planes droning over Urach. However, aside from some stray bombs that landed harmlessly in nearby forested hills, the town was untouched. Anna felt pretty safe at her place of work.

Anna was on an afternoon shift and finishing time was midnight. Tidying up her work area, she signed out and set off to her home about a kilometer away. The street was absolutely dark—black-out regulations being in effect—so she had to be careful walking on the ancient cobblestones. It was a trip she had made many times in the dark and she knew where the surface was most irregular.

This night she realised Stuttgart was being pounded once again. To the north the sky was a ruddy red glow. The night was filled with the dull rumble of explosions. Even from this distance she could see searchlights occasionally cleaving the sky. She could hear the drone of many aircraft. So strange thought Anna as she passed a garden; here the beautiful scent of roses, not far north death and destruction was falling from the sky. Anna shook her head and wondered where it would all end. She wished it would all end.

She was almost home when she saw a burning aircraft plummeting. It was like a flaming torch streaking earthward maybe ten kilometers distant. It disappeared silently from view behind the surrounding hills. Then Anna was startled by a loud whistling sound. Terrified, she dived to the ground by a low stone wall. Almost immediately there were four violent explosions in rapid succession: boom, boom, boom, boom. Anna cowered by the wall and covered her head as; earth, stones and shards of wood showered all around. There was a heavy thud as a chimney fell from the roof of a nearby building. Momentarily deafened, Anna realised some bombs had fallen on the hillside quite close by. Staying sheltered by the wall she listened but could hear nothing more falling. Nearby some voices were raised and somebody cursed loudly. Anna got to her feet and started to hurry toward her home. She wasn’t sure where the explosions had taken place, but she was concerned about safety of the children.

At the house the children had been sleeping. Their baby sitter—a girl from next door—had also been asleep with a blanket wrapped around in an easy chair. Those loud explosions woke them all and the youngest were crying. When Anna arrived, she was relieved to find there was no damage and she was able to calm the children. She bundled them all in blankets and they went into the cellar for safety. No more bombs fell nearby that night. Urach Residents concluded that a crippled bomber simply jettisoned the bombs to lighten the plane before they headed back to their home base.

After that experience Anna made sure the cellar was arranged more comfortably and she and the children spent time down there whenever planes were heard droning overhead.

As the war progressed, the allies began to enter Germany. Fighting drew closer to Urach and the townspeople were urged to flee into the surrounding hills. Anna piled essentials onto the baby carriage and, with the help of neighbors, evacuated into the wooded hillsides.

For two weeks they camped out in the woods and by hedgerows as numerous German army vehicles streamed through town in hasty retreat. After a couple of days these were replaced by American armored vehicles. There was distant gun-fire and explosions but no actual fighting in town. After a while, residents were allowed to return to their homes. Passing along the road a few miles from town she saw a line of covered bodies by the road side. No indication if they were German or foreigners. After that, the only soldiers she saw were American, Canadian or British. She heard that the Russians were entering Germany from the east and that German soldiers were surrendering by their thousands rather than fight.

The war ended in May but winter 1945 was soon upon them and it was called Vergeltungs Winter, ‘Payback winter.’ The Reich organization had crumbled. Nothing, not even rationed food, was available for some time. Food was so scarce the people were starving and dying in the city streets. In Urach they fared better than people in the cities because many residents had gardens, were growing some food and tended to share whatever they had available.

Then, in July, Anna was informed that her husband had been executed in the USA. He was accused of being involved in the death of another prisoner of war. Anna was devastated and wondered how she could possibly manage with three young children to support. Survive she did – somehow – with much help from neighbors.

Finally the Marshall plan came to the rescue and supplies of food and other staples started to improve quite dramatically. Life in Urach, at least for some, returned to normal. For Anna, nothing would ever seem normal again.

* * *

We were sitting by our campfire on one of our many wilderness hikes, when Hagen told me about his earliest memories:

"I hardly remember seeing my father, so I don’t recall being upset. At nearly five years old I really didn’t understand, but I remember my mother crying when news of my father’s execution reached her: Later I found out my father had been captured, taken to the USA and had been summarily executed, along with several others, for no good reason it seems. They were blamed for killing a fellow prisoner in the camp. I’ll never know if my father really was involved. My mother never did get over it and it obviously affected her and she has behaved strangely ever since.

I remember playing out in the woods with my brother and sister and other kids. I was dressed in my lederhosen—Huh! You wouldn’t catch me in that outfit nowadays—Many times we climbed the trail past the waterfall to the thirteenth century castle on top of the hill to the west of town and played games in and around the old stone walls. Sometimes even got a bit lost in the woods and there were some dangerously high cliffs. The way we played it’s a wonder we were never injured or killed. One day we came across some huge craters where bombs had fallen. Nearby trees were either blasted or completely flattened.

Now, of course, I knew those craters were from the bombs my mother talked about. They were the closest of any to fall near Urach and—unlike many towns that were razed to the ground—our town sustained only superficial damage during the war. All of the historic buildings—beautiful examples—were preserved and are now popular tourist attractions.

We kids got into trouble because we often went pilfering apples or plums from orchards or potatoes from the fields south of town. Some kids would create a disturbance out front to attract attention, while we would sneak in the back to steal something to eat. Several times we were caught and were chastised. We were not taking many, only one or two to eat or cook right away back at our ‘secret’ den in the woods.

My mother never did get over losing my father at the end of the war. All through my school years and my apprenticeship she was difficult to live with and it seemed I could never do enough to please her. She would behave as if war was about the break out again and she was always squirreling stuff away. Anyway, after I finished my apprenticeship, I couldn’t wait to get away—to escape from it all. I went hiking around different countries for a few months and finally immigrated to Canada – Ontario – when I was twenty. Very soon after that I moved to work in the USA. I lived in Michigan and Oregon before moving to Alaska"

Hagen stirred the hot embers and pushed the ends of a couple of logs deeper into the heart of the fire then continued with his reverie. He smiled at the recollection of his childhood and marvelled at the way things had changed – How much his mother changed. How much he had changed.

Chapter 2

An Unsettled Existence

At age fifteen and a half, Hagen presented himself at ‘Pumpenfabrik Urach,’ a manufacturer of pumps and hydraulic equipment in Urach. It was only two weeks after his graduation from Schulgrammatik in 1956. He had already been interviewed and accepted in their apprenticeship program. Pumpenfabrik Urach was an old company established in eighteen ninety-four. Each year they took on four or five apprentices. They had of course, been forced to work for the Reich during the war years, mainly on pumps and valves for marine applications. However, since the war they had managed to survive and even expand on the strength of civilian contracts. Some years ago they moved into a former weaving mill on the south side of Urach. They had an excellent reputation for precision and quality and their three year apprenticeship program was quite well renowned.

Hagen, of course, had to start at the bottom doing menial tasks. He passed through various departments, gaining stature, before finally settling in the machine shop. The company demanded that apprentices attend technical college in parallel with work, so he had a good technical education too. By the time he graduated, after three years, he had mastered all the machines and was considered to be one of the top apprentices.

Having been tied down with school and work for so long Hagen now felt he needed a break from it all. He had a desire to travel and see places that, so far, he had only read about.

Very soon he was fitted out with a backpack and camping gear and was hitch hiking his way around: Southern Germany, Austria, France, Spain and over to Morocco, and Tunisia. He bypassed Algeria because of unrest. On the way he picked up a few days casual labor and managed to earn enough to extend his wanderings.

Upon his return to Bad Urach he found