K.T. Robbins is a 97 year-old World War II veteran who never forgot the French girl he fell in love with while fighting in Normandy back in 1944.

K.T. enjoyed a powerful love affair with Jeannine Ganaye when he was 24 and she was 18. Unfortunately, their relationship ended when Robbins was transferred to fight on the Eastern Front, meaning the two lovebirds found themselves separated. After the war, K.T. returned home to the United States, got married, and resigned himself to the fact that he would never see Jeannine again.

Though he moved on with his life, K.T. always carried a small black-and-white photo of Ganaye with him. He had no idea that thousands of miles away in France, Jeannine was also pining for him. She had gotten married and moved on with her life, but she still dearly missed her American soldier.

Last month, just before the 75th anniversary of D-Day, K.T. and Jeannine were reunited by a French television station. The pair came face to face with one another at Jeannine’s retirement home, and the love that they have for each other was immediately clear to everyone.

“I always loved you,” K.T. told her as they hugged. “You never got out of my heart.”

“He said he loves me,” Jeannine told reporters. “I understood that much.”

K.T. and Jeannine, whose spouses have both passed away, each assumed that the other one had died. While they’re reunion was a joyful one, it still brought back sad memories of their sudden separation.

“I told her maybe I’ll come back and take you, but it did not happen like that,” K.T. said.

Jeannine added that she was so hopeful that he would come back for her that she tried to learn English after the war ended.

“When he left in the truck I cried, of course, I was very sad,” she said. “I wish, after the war, he hadn’t returned to America.”

K.T. said that it was loyalty to his wife Lillian, who he was married to for seventy years until her death in 2015, that kept him from tracking Jeannine down.

“You know, when you get married, after that you can’t do it anymore,” K.T. explained.

Nevertheless, Jeannine still wishes he had.

“I’ve always thought of him, thinking maybe he’ll come,” Jeannine said. “I wish he had come back.”

K.T. soon had to leave his love once again to attend the D-Day anniversary ceremony, but this time, they pledged to see each other soon.

“Jeannine, I love you, girl,” K.T. said as he left.

Check out their reunion for yourself below.