An American World War II veteran and his wartime girlfriend will spend this Valentine's Day together following an emotional reunion after more than 70 years apart. 
 
 Norwood Thomas, 93, laughed Wednesday as he met and hugged Joyce Morris, 88, for the first time since 1945. 
 
 "This is about the most wonderful thing that could have happened," said the former U.S. paratrooper, who flew 9,000 miles to Australia to see his long-lost sweetheart after they reconnected via Skype. 
 
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 Norwood, from Virginia Beach, was 21 when he met a then-17-year-old Morris in London shortly before the 1944 invasion of Normandy. 
 
 He returned to the U.S. after the war, and they exchanged letters. Thomas asked Morris to come to the U.S. to marry him, but she misunderstood and thought he'd found someone else, so she stopped writing. 
 
 The two eventually married other people. Thomas' wife died in 2001; Morris divorced her husband after 30 years. 
 
 However, the flame never quite went out. 
 
 Last year, Morris asked one of her sons to look for Thomas online and they found his name featured in an article about D-Day. 
 
 Norwood Thomas, 93, seen checking in for his long flight to Australia. Hyunsoo Leo Kim / \The Virginian-Pilot via AP 
 
 After their story was featured on Australia's Channel 7, hundreds of well-wishers made donations to help fund an emotional reunion. 
 
 "We are going to have a wonderful fortnight together," she said to him as they finally embraced in the city of Adelaide. 
 
 Norwood said: "It was a nice feeling to see this woman that I hadn't seen in 70 years." 
 
 He told reporters about the night he first saw her, in wartime London. 
 
 "This friend and I were walking across a bridge at Richmond across the Thames river and we looked down below and saw these two young ladies that were talking to a man about renting a row boat so we decided we'd go down and say 'hello,'" he said. 
 
 "This young lady had a smile that would melt you and of course I was melted and it very rapidly developed into something from attraction to a very strong affection." 
 
 She recalled: "We snogged, as you call it, when it was dark and nobody could see us." 
 
 The reunited couple reflected on how their paths never again crossed — but wished they had. 
 
 "I would have had a totally different life … and probably a much happier one," Morris said. ||||| After a 10,000-mile long flight from Virginia to Australia, a World War II U.S. army veteran finally reunited with his wartime girlfriend today after recently reconnecting online. 
 
 For the first time in over 70 years, Norwood Thomas, 93, came face-to-face with Joyce Durrant Morris, 88, his long-lost first love. 
 
 The two were speechless at first and shared a warm embrace and kiss on the cheek. 
 
 "This is about the most wonderful thing that could have happened to me," Thomas said, in a reunion broadcast on Australia's Channel TEN TV show "The Project." 
 
 Nine News Australia 
 
 "Good," Morris replied with a laugh. "We're going to have a wonderful fortnight." 
 
 The two said they planned to spend Valentine's Day together. 
 
 Thomas and Morris' story began in the spring of 1944 in London. The two had dated for a few months but were separated when Thomas was forced to leave for the Battle of Normandy in France, he told ABC News in November. 
 
 ABC 
 
 For over seven decades, the two lived separate lives. Both married other people, though Morris is now divorced and Thomas' wife passed away a few years ago. Morris also lives in Australia. 
 
 The two were brought together again last November, when Morris' son found contact information for Thomas' son online. The men reconnected their parents through Skype and phone calls, the first of which brought the wartime lovers to tears. 
 
 ABC 
 
 "When she called me 'Tommy,' her nickname for me, Oh, my God, it stirred emotions that had been dormant for a long, long time," Thomas told ABC News. "She had always been on the fringes of my thoughts this whole time. She'd always pop up as a pleasant memory, and it turns out that she'd been thinking of me this whole time too." 
 
 Though Thomas wasn't sure if he'd call his "strong feelings" for Morris "love" quite yet, he said he was excited to see Morris again in Australia and to "reminisce about their old days together," his son Steven Thomas told ABC News last month. 
 
 Thomas' trip was made possible by hundreds of people who made donations online after reading his story and by Air New Zealand, which made arrangements to fly Thomas and his son first class, free of charge. ||||| Daughter Diana Young Long tells the story of the recovery of her father's remains. 
 
 Diana Young Long, center, with her husband, Greg Long, and family and friends pay their respects during the burial service for Herbert V. Young Jr., a U.S. Army Air Forces pilot during World War II, at the Prescott National Cemetery on Wednesday. (Photo: Charlie Leight, The Arizona Republic) 
 
 PRESCOTT, Ariz. — She was in the womb when her dad went to war, an infant when he died. So there was no awareness that anti-aircraft rounds blasted his B-24 bomber, sending it spiraling in flames into the jungles of New Guinea. 
 
 Just a hole in her life. Growing up fatherless. Secretly wondering what he was like and whether, despite a death certificate, he might someday show up. 
 
 Seven decades elapsed. Then, in March, Diana Young Long got a call from the Army: Some of her father's remains had been recovered from the jungle wreckage and identified with DNA evidence. 
 
 He was coming home with full military honors. 
 
 Wednesday afternoon, with bagpipes playing at Prescott National Cemetery, 1st Lt. Herbert V. "Buddy" Young Jr. was buried. 
 
 "It's been real emotional," says Young, 71, her eyes full of tears. 
 
 "I always wanted a dad. But I had my mom and my brother. So there were the three of us." 
 
 COLLECTING MEMORIES 
 
 The odyssey has many chapters, many mysteries. And time has erased most of the details. 
 
 They were both born in Jerome — Zoeleen McLain and Herbert Young — and grew up classmates at Clarkdale High School. Buddy, a heartthrob, was captain of the football and basketball teams. Zoe was Miss Prescott. 
 
 The exact date is uncertain, but they married in 1941, just months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 
 
 Like thousands of young Americans, Buddy signed up to fight. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and became a pilot. Military records show he earned his wings at Williams Field, the old flight-training center in Mesa, and joined the 5th Air Force Command, 90th Bomber Group, 321st Bombardment Squadron. 
 
 In a black-and-white photo, apparently taken before Buddy shipped out, the sweethearts resemble Hollywood film stars. Zoe was two months pregnant. 
 
 Joyce McLain Peters, Zoe's sister, recalls Buddy's letters from overseas — thoughtful and funny. In some of them, he talked about the unborn child his wife was carrying. 
 
 "He was just such a sweet, clever, handsome guy," adds Joyce, who still lives in Prescott. "I thought the world of him." 
 
 By April 10, 1944, according to family lore, Buddy Young had flown 300 hours of combat missions and was scheduled to come home. Instead, he volunteered to fill in as co-pilot next to 1st Lt. Bryant E. Poulson aboard a B-24 bomber nicknamed "Hot Garters." 
 
 "I always heard he was not supposed to be flying," Diana says softly. 
 
 Poulson and his 11-man crew led the squadron's attack that day against Japanese installations at Hansa Bay on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. A declassified account from the battle was written by 1st Lt. George R. Anderson, who was No. 2 in the flight formation at 10:45 a.m. 
 
 "Lt. Poulson had apparently settled down on his bomb run, and I would say about 30 seconds before his release, point ack-ack started to burst all around him. Number two engine seemed to be hit and flames came back way past the tail . ... I saw the bombs being salvoed. Lt. Poulson then started a gradual turn to the left and I saw the bombs being salvoed. ... 
 
 "The left wing folded up and the plane disintegrated. It was at approximately 10,000 feet. Five parachutes were seen to open. I followed the plane down and continued to circle until all five chutes were on the ground. The plane was still burning on the ground when we left the scene, and we could see two of the men moving about." 
 
 Over the next few days, searches proved fruitless. 
 
 Weeks later, however, Guineans near Nubia Village told an Australian military officer that four fliers had survived the crash, though badly burned. A report by Lt. W.A. Macgregor says natives described how an enemy patrol captured the men: 
 
 "After binding the Americans, the Japanese beat them with pieces of timber and tried to induce the natives to do so. The natives say they refused." 
 
 The prisoners were marched toward a Japanese base. Villagers recounted that one American, unable to continue, was shot. Over the ensuing days, another was beaten to death. A third apparently died of injuries. A fourth was shot. There is no account of the fifth parachutist. 
 
 All 12 crewmen were listed as missing in action. Two years later, they were presumed dead. 
 
 A non-profit uncovered Buddy Young’s remains after it began to investigate WWII crash sites in Papua New Guinea. (Photo: Final Search and Recover Report) 
 
 BRINGING HIM HOME 
 
 Back in Arizona, Diana collected snippets of information that a child hears growing up. 
 
 She stayed sometimes with her father's parents, but Grandma struggled with Buddy's death and couldn't talk much about him. 
 
 Zoeleen remarried, divorced and married again. But for Diana, stepdads never filled the fatherly void. 
 
 The remark does not come out as a complaint, but a matter of fact. She lived a full life, including 20 years as a cosmetologist and 20 more in banking. 
 
 She retired in Lake Almanor, Calif., with her husband, Greg Long. Remnants of a wrecked bomber 7,000 miles away were faint history. Diana was unaware that PacificWrecks, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching World War II crashes and battles, had begun collaborating with the Army on recovery expeditions in 2001. 
 
 Over the next 13 years, according to military records, a series of at least four archaeological excavations were carried out, each one uncovering remains along with artifacts such as belt buckles, coins and ammunition. Graves of at least two parachutists were located. 
 
 Diana said she learned of the discoveries several years ago. She'd waited a lifetime and was not impatient. 
 
 Finally, this spring, the U.S. Army advised her that bones and teeth were being compared with DNA samples taken from Buddy's sister before she died. Did Diana want to know the results? 
 
 Zoeleen and Buddy Young married in 1941. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Buddy signed up for the Air Force. (Photo: Courtesy of family) 
 
 She begins to cry, thinking of the next phone call: The DNA matched. 
 
 Her father was coming home. 
 
 Weeks ago, there was a ceremony at Diana's home in California. 
 
 Along with medals, the Army gave Diana a thick book containing detailed military records of the crash and subsequent recovery efforts. 
 
 About 300,000 Americans died in World War II combat, and more than 70,000 were unaccounted for. As Diana paged through the volume this week, grateful for a tangible keepsake of the dad she never knew, her face clouded with melancholy. 
 
 "I just find it extremely sad," she says. "A waste. Not just him, but all of these young men dying." 
 
 On Wednesday, nearly 100 attended her father's interment, about 20 family members among them. A bugler played taps. The honor guard delivered a 15-gun salute. Pastor Bob Hanson, a veteran who served in Korea and Vietnam, read Psalm 23. 
 
 "Now he's back in these beautiful mountains and valleys where he grew up," the minister said, "surrounded by people who love him." 
 
 His casket was lowered into the ground. A gravestone lay nearby with Buddy's name and a brief epitaph: "Killed in Action April 10, 1944. Welcomed home Oct. 15, 2014" 
 
 There is one last chapter: Next spring, unidentified remains and relics from the crash site are to be buried in a single grave at Arlington National Cemetery. 
 
 Wagner also reports for The Arizona Republic 
 
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– It was the hug he'd been waiting 70 years for. World War II vet Norwood Thomas, 93, greeted his wartime sweetheart Joyce Morris, 88, in person on Wednesday for the first time since their brief love affair in London in 1944, per NBC News. "This is about the most wonderful thing that could have happened," Thomas said after flying 10,000 miles from Virginia to Adelaide, Australia, where he'll spend the next two weeks. "We are going to have a wonderful fortnight together," Morris added, telling reporters she still remembers when the couple "snogged" decades ago "when it was dark and nobody could see us." On Wednesday, reports ABC News, they shared a kiss on the cheek; they plan to spend Valentine's Day together as well.