Half Pass Six: The Arcturus Expedition, 1925

Bremerhaven, Germany, 1919. A young, desperately poor German father leaves his small family to seek treatment for the poison gas that scalded his lungs on the battlefields of World War I. He never returns. Only his last, blood—stained pillowcase remains. His family is bereft.

Brooklyn, 1925. That dead father’s son, Willi Rohrbein, illegal, without papers, sneaks into New York harbor on a ship from Bremerhaven where he has been stowed away by friends of his uncle. He reunites with his mother ...