They say you never forget your first true love and that’s certainly the case for Army veteran K.T. Robbins. While stationed in northeastern France during World War II in 1944 the then 24-year-old K.T. fell in love with 18-year-old French girl Jeannine Ganaye.
Fast forward 75 years and the two of them finally got to meet again and tell each other that their love had never faded.
K.T met and fell in love with Jeannine while fighting in northeastern France. Just a short while after meeting her, he was forced to say a hurried goodbye before being transferred to fight on the Eastern Front.
He told her that he would come back and get her, but circumstances meant he returned to America and moved on with his life. All he had to remember her was a black-and-white photograph.Jeannine Ganaye, now Pierson, also moved on with her life but secretly hoped her true love would return, she even took English lessons in anticipation.
But after 75 years the two were finally reunited and it was clear from their reunion that their love for each other had never faded.
A French television station flew K.T. to France for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy.
‘You never got out of my heart’
On the plane over, K.T., now 97 years old, is told that they had found Jeannine and he was going to meet the 92-year-old in her French retirement home.
“I always loved you,” K.T. told her in their emotional reunion. “You never got out of my heart.”
“He said he loves me…I understood that much,” Jeannine said in French to reporters, according to TODAY.