Norwood Thomas and Joyce Durrant
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It has been one year since a Skype call reunited a World War II Veteran from Virginia Beach to his war-time girlfriend.
Last Veteran’s Day, WTKR told the love story of Norwood Thomas, 94, and Joyce Durrant.
The two met near London during the war. Norwood, a member of the 101st Airborne Division was stationed there shortly before D-Day and met Joyce who was living there at the time.
Norwood Thomas and Joyce Durrant
They planned to get married, but the war and their lives afterward kept them apart. He returned to the US, and she moved to Australia.
While the couple wrote letters to each other, they eventually lost touch once the war ended. Then last November, Norwood and Joyce saw each other for the first time in more than 70 years on Skype.
Their reunion gained international attention, prompting Air New Zealand to fly Norwood and his son to Australia, where Joyce now lives, to reunite in person.
For more than two weeks, the two were back together to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
“This is about the most wonderful thing that could’ve happened to me,” Norwood told Joyce during their reunion.
Although their spark was still there, at the end of the trip, Norwood and Joyce agreed that it was not possible to stay together romantically.
“We both understood that with our age, we could never get together again,” said Norwood. “To realize that this was goodbye was hard.”
But thanks to technology all is not lost.
A year after reconnecting, Norwood and Joyce remain friends. Norwood says he and Joyce write letters, talk on the phone and even Skype, bringing their relationship full circle.
