How long would you wait for you wait for your sweetheart to come home from war? A year? A decade? Or how about 62 years? That’s how long Peggy S. Harris of Vernon, Texas, waited for her Billie. An airman, he went missing in action during the final months of World War II. It soon became apparent that, however much his family as well as Peggy hoped and prayed, Billie wouldn’t be coming home. But, unlike so many war widows, Peggy never had anywhere to go and pay her respects. Billie’s body was never found, and his final resting place remained a mystery. Or at least it did. Then, six decades after his plane was shot down over northern France, Peggy finally received the news she’d been waiting almost all her life to hear.
Theirs was a romance like so many others in the 1940s. They were young and in love. And, though Europe burned and the United States was at war, they were optimistic about their future together. Peggy first met Billie thanks to his father. She worked alongside her future father-in-law, serving as an instrument mechanic at an airplane factory in Altus, Oklahoma. He was forever telling her how dashing his son, just three years Peggy’s senior was. Then, one day, he brought her a letter from his Billie. Their great romance had begun.
The start of a great love affair
At first, it was a romance conducted through the U.S. Mail. With the war waging, Peggy was required to work all hours at the factory. Billie, meanwhile, was a cadet in the Army Air Corp, itching to earn his wings and play his part in the fight against Hitler. Then, with the kindle of their love having been nurtured with written conversations about poetry and opera, Billie was due leave, so he headed to Altus to meet his pen pal. As a practical joke, Peggy hid in the cockpit of one of the planes being repaired in the factory, hoping to surprise him. And, though he spotted her as soon as he arrived at the Altus factory, he was immediately smitten.
Whatever reservations Peggy may have had to begin with soon vanished. She was in love too. Just weeks after first meeting in person, Peggy accepted Billie’s proposal of marriage. They wed in the Florida, where he had been sent for advanced training, He was a handsome young man of 21, she a pretty young Southern Belle of just 18. But Billie and Peggy were married for just six weeks before the call came: a troop ship transporting pilots over the Atlantic had been attacked. Replacement flyers were needed. Billie was going to war. In October of 1943, he deployed. Wary of a second attack, the airmen’s wives were told to keep their deployment a secret until they had safely reached Europe. That was the last time Peggy was to see her husband.