In the midst of World War II, a young American soldier fell head over heels in love for an 18-year-old French girl while he was stationed in her small hometown.
Fast-forward 75 years and KT Robbins, now 97, has finally been reunited with the woman whose picture he has treasured for more than half a century.
Robbins was a 24-year-old soldier in the US Army when he first laid eyes on Jeannine Ganaye, now 92, in the northeastern French town of Briey in 1944.
The pair quickly fell in love but, two months later, Robbins was told he had to quickly leave the village and head to the Eastern Front to fight against the Axis Powers. I told her maybe I'll come back and take you, but it did not happen like that. When he left in the truck I cried, of course, I was very sad.
When the war came to an end in 1945, Pierson began learning basic English phrases, hoping Robbins would one day return for her.
Instead Robbins went back to America, getting married and starting a family in Mississippi. Pierson also fell in love again, having five children of her own.
But Robbins never forgot about his French lover, keeping a black-and-white photo of Pierson and her village tucked away for decades.
And he still had that photo when he was approached by a group of French journalists for a report on World War II veterans in the United States.
Robbins showed them Pierson's photo and told them he would like to return to her village 'to find her family' while he was in France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
He assumed that Pierson had passed away. But the journalists managed to track down Pierson, finding her at a retirement home in Montigny-lès-Metz, Moselle, about 27 miles from where the pair first met. They arranged a reunion for Robbins and Pierson at the retirement home, telling the veteran: 'She's alive, and she's waiting for you'.
The emotional reunion was caught on camera as they gazed into each other’s eyes for the first time in 75 years.
I always loved you. You never got out of my heart,’ Robbins told his long-lost love.
When asked why he never came back for her, he replied: ‘You know, when you get married, after that you can’t do it anymore.’
After a few hours together, Robbins had to head off to the anniversary celebrations in Normandy, but the widowed pair promised to meet again, sharing a tender kiss for the first time in 75 years.
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