We'll Meet Again

Defending the 38th Parallel, gunner Jim Owen describes being marooned under heavy artillery attack from Chinese troops in 1951. There he witnessed an act of heroism that has stayed with him for nearly 70 years.

Join Ann Curry as Korean War veterans search for their brothers in arms. One wants to show his gratitude to two lieutenants who inspired him to be brave in battle, and the other hopes to thank a friend who boosted his spirits aboard a hospital ship.

Danny Kendall describes how on the day of the earthquake his buddy Bucky was nowhere to be seen, so he hung out with older boys Dennis and Stanley. Together they went to Valdez port to see the supply ship SS Chena that had docked that day.

Danny drives to the Washington State Archives where he meets librarian Kathryn Devine to see articles about his friend Bucky and family.

Michele Wiley was watching TV at her friend Gretchen Young’s house in Turnagain, Anchorage, when the earthquake struck. She describes the intensity of the quake that seemed to go on forever, "like ten freight trains going through the house at the same time."

Join Ann Curry as two Alaskans try to track down childhood friends who also survived the state’s massive 1964 earthquake. A woman wants to thank a friend and her mom for shielding her from harm, and a man searches for a former Little League teammate.

Michele is at the Bellingham County Library where she is shown yearbooks and her long lost friend Gretchen’s high school photos.  Librarian Suzanne Carlson-Prandini has found Gretchen’s marriage certificate and uses this information to search a database to find Gretchen’s current address and phone number in Seattle.

Ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor Benjamin Lesser describes losing his family in the horrors of the concentration camps during WWII. He’s looking for the fellow survivor who became like a brother to him. Ben Alalouf describes arriving in the USA in 1944 on the USS Henry Gibbons, a troop carrier sent to help Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Jewish Refugee Ben Alalouf tells of his arrival at an old military camp in Oswego, New York in 1944. He and his family were so relieved to at last be safe, having run for their lives across Europe with the Nazi forces on their heels. The camp was later called “Safe Haven” and for nearly a year Ben developed a friendship with a little girl called “Seka.”

Holocaust survivor Benjamin Lesser describes arriving on a cattle car at Auschwitz concentration camp. He recounts seeing the ashes on the ground and not knowing what they were. A Nazi officer tells Benjamin that it is the ashes of Jewish bodies that have been burned. Benjamin not only loses his younger brother and sister to this fate, but is also threatened that a similar horror awaits him.

When liberation finally came Benjamin was so exhausted and malnourished that he simply collapsed. He describes waking up two months later in St. Ottilien, a monastery in Germany that had been made into a make-shift hospital. There he met another young holocaust survivor, Moshe Opatovski who, like him, had lost everything in the Holocaust.

Join Ann Curry as Holocaust survivors search for those who gave them hope in the darkest days. One wants to find the friend he left behind when he didn’t move to Israel; the other hopes an old photo will reunite him with the girl who was his first friend.