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97-Year-Old Veteran Reunited With His Wartime Love After 75 Years

Deborah Cicurel

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97-Year-Old Veteran Reunited With His Wartime Love After 75 Years

Featured Image Credit: France 2

A 97-year-old American veteran has been reunited with a French woman he fell in love with during World War II after 75 years.

KT Robbins was aged 24 and stationed in Briey, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France, in 1944, when he met Jeannine Ganaye, then 18, after her mother agreed to help KT wash his clothes

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The pair soon fell in love, but just two months later, KT had to leave to head to the Eastern Front.

KT told French television channel France 2 that he wanted to go back for Jeannine after the war, saying she was a "sweet girl" and that she had loved him. He said at the time he had thought: "Maybe I will go back for her, but it didn't happen like that."

Credit: BBC
Credit: BBC

After the war, KT returned to America, and Jeannine began to learn some basic English in the hope that her wartime love would return for her one day.

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Both eventually moved on and married other people, but did not forget about their short romance, with KT even keeping a black and white photo of Jeannine for all those years.

After being approached by French journalists who were reporting on World War II veterans in America, KT showed them the photo and told them he would like to return to the village to "find her family", assuming that Jeannine herself would have passed away.

Credit: France 2
Credit: France 2

The journalists set to work and managed to find Jeannine at a nearby retirement home. They told KT the news on his first trip back to France since the war to commemorate D-Day, announcing "she's alive", to which he incredulously replied, "you're kidding".

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Over 75 years after they last saw each other, and now both widowed, KT and Jeannine were finally reunited at the retirement home, greeting each other with a kiss, sharing words of love, reminiscing about their time together and promising to meet again.

Credit: France 2
Credit: France 2

KT showed Jeannine the picture he had kept for 75 years, and told her: "I always loved you. You never got out of my heart."

The pair spent hours together before KT had to leave for anniversary commemorations in Normandy, before shedding tears and promising to meet again.

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No, you're crying...

Topics: Life News

Deborah Cicurel
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