World War II Sweethearts Reunite After More Than 70 Years

More than seven decades after the end of World War II, one long-separated couple is getting a very happy Valentine’s Day.

U.S. paratrooper Norwood Thomas, then 21, and Londoner Joyce Morris, then 17, met before D-Day in London and started a relationship. After the war ended, they wrote each other letters, but Thomas’s request that Morris move to the U.S. to marry him was somehow misinterpreted, and Morris stopped writing back. They married other people, and eventually Thomas was widowed and Morris divorced.

But last year, Morris had her son help her find Thomas online, and the pair began corresponding again. Thanks to donations from well-wishers, Thomas, now 93, has been able to fly from Virginia to Australia to reunite with Morris, 88, for a Valentine’s Day visit. “This is about the most wonderful thing that could have happened to me,” Thomas said in a broadcast of their meeting, according to the Associated Press.

“We’re going to have a wonderful fortnight,” said Morris.

[AP]