The reunion of G.I. Wilbur and little Willy Huys was 66 years in the making

By John Katsilometes

Monday, Sept. 5, 2011 | 7:23 p.m.

The 96-year-old World War II Army veteran greets guests at his cozy west Las Vegas home from a creaky but comfortable recliner. He wears large glasses that mask much of his face, and his battle-weary legs are draped in a green-gray blanket.

As Wilbur Brewer’s longtime caregiver, Shirley Frank, makes the introduction, the old soldier smiles slightly and says, “Forgive me for not getting up.”

No problem.

Seated on a couch just to Wilbur’s left are two women. One is Gerty Warren, visiting Brewer from Victorville, Calif. The other is her sister, Willy Huys, visiting Wilbur from Canberra, Australia. Shirley, her hair a stark shock of white, sits in a chair at Wilbur’s right, keeping close watch of his responses and disposition, ably filling in the blanks in Wilbur’s recollections.

Wilbur is here and there in conversation, which is understandable given that he is closer to 100 years of age than 90. He shuts his eyes, then pops them open and grins. He speaks clearly and responds swiftly.

Even so, Wilbur’s memory is of course not as vivid as it was in his youth, and it takes some puzzle-piece assembling to sort out just what brought two sisters who live thousands of miles apart, a loving Las Vegas caregiver and a stoic Army veteran to this moment. Asked if he can remember the phone call from 6 months ago, when Willy and Gerty re-entered his life, Wilbur shrugs and says, “No, I can’t remember when that was. I don’t remember 6 months ago.”

It hardly matters, as there is a clear intuitive familiarity for Wilbur and the two women who spent years trying to track him down. They laugh and chat, and in the moment, they all share in a remarkable tale of reunion, one that spans several decades and dates to World War II.

***

Wilbur Brewer and Willy Huys, who today is 72 years old but looks 20 years younger, are at the center of this tale. It all begins in the Dutch village of Tegelen, which sits just across the Netherlands-Germany border from the German town of Kaldenkirchen. The Germans had stormed Tegelen, bombing out most of its homes and buildings, but in the war’s waning months, Allied forces had regained control of the battle-scarred village. In May 1945, U.S. tanks rumbled into Tegelen as German forces were being blasted out of the heavily damaged town.

Aboard one of those tanks was Wilbur Brewer, a 31-year-old tank operator assigned to The 784th Tank Battalion, one of the few black armored units deployed during World War II, serving under Lt. Col. George Dalia. The phalanx of rolling military equipment entered Tegelen, turning into a dirt road and toward a field across from a large roof-tile factory no longer in operation, as the Germans had captured all the men working at the plant and herded them into labor camps.

Citizens flooded the area, including hundreds of grateful children offering the rescuing soldiers hard candy, chocolate and cigarettes. Wilbur spotted one of the children standing alone in the crowd, a 6-year-old girl named Willy Huys.

What Wilbur did next helped forge a lifelong, if long interrupted, friendship.

“Wilbur picked me out of all these children and carried me around on his shoulders,” Willy recalls. “I directed him to my home. When my mother opened the door, I showed her Wilbur.”

There stood a lean, 31-year-old U.S. Army soldier.

“He adopted our family and gave us food parcels, and came to church with us on Sunday,” Willy says. She had contracted tuberculosis and was taken by Red Cross officials to a nearby sanitarium for treatment.

“Wilbur was there to say farewell to me, and he cried,” Willy says. It was not the final farewell, but the two would not meet face-to-face for another 66 years.

When Wilbur returned to America, to his hometown of Detroit, specifically, he shipped clothes, shoes and Christmas stockings stuffed with candy each year. Three seashells he had sent to Tegelen are still in the Huys family. He also mailed a portrait of him and his wife, Iona, known as “Iney,” who passed away in 2003.

“We have kept that portrait in the family, and it stood on our sideboard for all those years until my mother died in 1986,” Willy says.

Over the next several years, Wilbur placed Willy on a sponsorship list to visit the United States and see his family in Detroit, a rare opportunity as only 1,500 residents of the Netherlands were granted such visas to travel to America. But the process for approval was lengthy, and in that span, Willy fell in love with the man who would become her husband who operated a small newspaper in the region that was shut down when the Nazis moved into Holland.

The two moved to Canberra, Australia, in the early 1960s. It was no random location: Willy’s uncle lived in that city, and the two sought to start a new life far removed from their hometown.

The Huys family’s contact with Wilbur continued intermittently for many years until 1979, when Wilbur moved to Las Vegas. He had worked for years as an IRS agent and moved here to retire.

This was a rare case where an IRS agent was being sought rather than doing the seeking. It seemed to the Huys family that Wilbur had simply vanished.

“My mother sent several letters to him,” Willy recalls, “but all of them were returned to sender.” After a few years, Gerty’s husband, who was a U.S. serviceman, attempted to find Wilbur’s whereabouts, “but had no luck,” as Willy says.

This was in the mid-1980s, the days before a simple online search of an individual’s name on the Internet would provide at least a toehold as to his or her whereabouts. Years, and decades, passed. Willy had practically given up hope when it was finally suggested that she make one more push on the Internet to track down the Wilbur Brewer of her youth.

“I said, ‘He could not possibly be alive,’ ” Willy says.

Nonetheless, Willy ran a search of such details as Wilbur’s full name and that Iney had been a schoolteacher. She also knew that Wilbur and Iney were members of a Presbyterian Church and added that information, too.

Through the magic of the Internet, Willy found her long-lost G.I. in November of last year.

“Up came all the information I had been looking for,” Willy says, “including that Iona had passed away in Las Vegas.” She found that Wilbur was still living, at age 96, and a phone number in Las Vegas matching his name. Gerty made the initial call from Victorville to Wilbur’s home, and, as always, Shirley picked up the phone.

“We get so many people asking for money on donations to some charity,” Shirley says. “I have to make sure Wilbur doesn’t answer the phone and just start giving money to strangers.”

Gerty asked Shirley if she had reached the home of a World War II veteran named Wilbur Brewer. She had. Then she asked if Wilbur was black and served as a tank operator in Holland in 1945.

Through all the questions, Shirley halted when Gerty asked about Wilbur’s ethnicity.

“I knew when she asked if Wilbur was black that they knew who he was,” Shirley says. “It wasn’t at all a racial thing. They were asking about a specific physical characteristic that they remembered, and it was him.” Shirley turned to Wilbur and relayed the questions, and Wilbur remembered carrying a little girl through the streets of Tegelen near the end of the war.

“Gerty rang me back in Australia and said, ‘It’s him, and you must phone him now,’ ” Willy says. “I did. We finally had found him. My mother would have been so happy if she had experienced this.”

Willy and Gerty made arrangements to meet Wilbur and flew to Las Vegas for an initial meeting on Aug. 12. The two returned for another visit Aug. 30. The conversations have been lively, friendly and a means for everyone to provide a closing chapter to this remarkable saga.

What’s next?

“We plan on staying in touch,” Willy says, smiling. “I know where to find him now.”

From his recliner, Wilbur smiles, too. Asked if he looks forward to renewing his friendship with the little girl he scooped from the streets of Tegelen, he nods and says, “This is the greatest thing ever.”

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