Widow of 1st Lt. Billie Harris Didn't Know Husband Was a Hero

Peggy Harris didn't know what happened to her husband. She tried to find out and reached out to Vice Chair of the House Armed Service Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry. He said her husband was still missing in action but that was not the truth. He was listed as KIA. After years of searching for answers, she discovered her husband was not just buried but remembered by the people of the town.

This story came out two years ago but someone on Facebook posted it today. Thornberry apologized for dropping the ball but is that all that widow deserves from him? Did the DOD ever explain why she was never notified? Didn't anyone know this hero was being honored for the life he sacrificed so many years ago?

For WWII soldier's widow, a 60-year mystery finally solved
Among the Americans who fought to liberate France in the months ahead was 1st Lt. Billie Harris. CBS News went "On the Road," to tell Harris' story -- part mystery, part romance.

Peggy Harris of Vernon, Tex. never got a knock at the door, never got a telegram, never got anything definitive explaining what happened to her husband Billie during World War II. And so, in the absence of answers, she has remained dutiful to this day.

Peggy was very frustrated. She waited. Months turned into years -- "and still no answer." Years turned to decades. So she wrote her congressman.

Wrote repeatedly, in fact, asking for any information about the fate of her husband. The last letter, in 2005, was directed to Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, who also happens to be vice-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

In his reply, Thornberry said Billie was "still listed as 'missing in action' in the National Archives."

The wife of a World War II soldier waited for more than 68 years for solid proof that her husband is either dead or alive. Then she learned the stunning truth in Normandy, France. Steve Hartman reports.

Part Two

"They don't forget": Normandy still honors American WWII pilot's sacrifice (CBS News) LES VENTES, France - On this anniversary of D-day, we continue the story of one of the American soldiers who fought to liberate France from the Nazis, 1st Lt. Billie Harris. On Tuesday, the "CBS Evening News" reported on how it took Harris' widow six decades of battling bureaucracy to learn his fate.

But it turns out his death was just the beginning of an amazing tale.

It's now been 67 years since the liberation of France, but at Wednesday's D-Day ceremony in Normandy there was one woman who's still in mourning. In fact, until recently, Peggy Harris of Vernon, Texas, didn't even know her husband Billie was buried here. And certainly didn't know the story of what he means to Les Ventes, France.

Billie was a fighter pilot, shot down and killed in July of 1944 over Nazi-occupied northern France. But because of a series of snafus, miscues and miscommunications, that information never got to his wife. As far as she knew, Bill was just missing.

She waited, she said, "All of my life."