Everlasting Love: WWII Veteran and girlfriend reunite after 70 years

Norwood Thomas with a photo of Joyce Morris at his home in Virginia Beach. Photograph: Bill Tiernan/AP
Norwood Thomas with a photo of Joyce Morris at his home in Virginia Beach. Photograph: Bill Tiernan/AP
Norwood Thomas, 93, from Virginia, US, has reunited with Joyce Morris, 88, in Australia more than 70 years after they first met.

In a tale that will spark joy in the hearts of romantics around the world, a 93-year-old WWII veteran has been reunited with his first love, 70 years later.

Norwood Thomas was a 21-year-old paratrooper when he first met British girl, Joyce Morris, 88, in London just before D-day in 1944.

After the war separated them, Thomas returned to his native America where the couple began a long-distance friendship that consisted of regular mail correspondence. Soon after, Norwood wrote to Joyce, asking for her to come to America so they could be married. In a harsh twist of fate, Joyce misunderstood his letter, thinking he had found somebody else. Joyce immediately stopped writing and Norwood took that as a sign of her rejection.

The pair eventually married other people.

After Thomas’s wife passed in 2001 and Joyce divorced her husband of 30 years, the pair rekindled their past relationship over the internet.

Joyce’s son was responsible for the reconnection, after he was asked by his mother to investigate the whereabouts of her former flame.

The pair reconnected over Skype and soon enough, their inspiring love story was breaking news across the world. Hundreds of people jumped on the bandwagon raising enough funds for Thomas to fly to Australia to reunite with his long-lost-love.

Mr Thomas had also never forgotten the girl he’d left behind.

“All through my life, I’ve had this little thought of ‘what if,'” he said.

Thomas arrived in Adelaide earlier this week and said the first thing he was going to do was give his wartime girlfriend “a squeeze.”

The pair are expected to stay in Adelaide for two weeks, allowing the couple to spend Valentine’s Day together.

 

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