WWII Vet Reunites With Girlfriend After 70 Years Apart

A 93-year-old World War II veteran embraced his wartime girlfriend in Australia in a reunion Wednesday after more than 70 years apart, Fox News reports.

Norwood Thomas and 88-year-old Joyce Morris laughed as they hugged following Thomas' three-day journey from Virginia to Adelaide.

"This is about the most wonderful thing that could have happened to me," Thomas gushed on Channel 10's "The Project," Fox News reports.

"Good," Morris replied. "We're going to have a wonderful fortnight."

The pair first met in London, shortly before D-Day, when Morris was 17 and Thomas was a 21-year-old paratrooper. After the war, he returned to the United States, and though he asked Morris to come to America to marry him, she misunderstood, thought he'd found someone else, and stopped writing, Fox News reports.

Both got married to others, with Thomas' wife dying in 2001; Morris divorced her husband after 30 years.

But last year, Morris asked one of her sons to look for Thomas online, and they found his name featured in an article on D-Day and they reconnected via Skype, Fox News reports.

"It's been 71 years in the making and it's been a long trip... three days... so we're hoping everything works out really nice and we're really looking forward to it," Thomas' son, Steve, tells The Advertiser in Adelaide.

"Yes I'm sure there will be [tears]... especially when we leave."

Related Stories:

• VA Wants More Proof Purple-Heart Veteran Served in World War II
• Jewish Group Condemns Far-right WWII Remembrance in Hungary