Wright grew up knowing only that his father had died in a crash, and that he was buried at the American Cemetery in Cambridge. Wright knew nothing further, and — until that phone call last year — he certainly didn't realize that the village where his father died was determined not to forget him.

Two men in particular, English historian Frank Phillipson and journalist David Rose, spent several years unearthing the story of the Lilly Bell II — the name of the C-47 Dakota aircraft that crashed that day in southern England — and its crew.

John Edmund Wright was the co-pilot on the Lilly Bell, which was named for the wife of the pilot, Mercer Wilson Avent.

Wright grew up in the village of Nichols, New York, and attended Cornell University. He met Jean Love, a school teacher, in Nichols. They married after his 1942 enlistment in the air corps and traveled to various bases during John's training. Their son — John Curtis Wright — was born while John was stationed in Lubbock, Texas.

Wright graduated from flight school in Lubbock in December 1943 and soon went overseas. Jean went back to Nichols with their baby.

Wright sent home letters from the war, dispatches his son would later read. "He was always asking himself, ‘Am I brave?'" the son recalled.