War was raging and the battlefield near Salerno, Italy, was bloody when they met in 1944. An American soldier, George Farlin, then 26, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, found the 10 year old Italian girl wandering alone and frightened amid the carnage.
Touched by her plight, Fortin brought her to her home in Passiano, 8 miles from Salerno, and learned her name was Anna Farano.
Later he returned to Passiano to visit her and brought presents for her poverty-stricken family. Not knowing each other's language, he and Anna could talk only with signs at first. But a neighbor of Anna who could speak English sometimes interpreted for them.
Finally, Fortin had to leave the area when his outfit was assigned to duty elsewhere. As he left, Fortin told the girl, half jokingly: "Some day I'll come back and marry you."
The years slipped by and Fortin returned to America. He and Anna wrote to each other but, as she grew up, the Italian girl wondered: "Will he really come back to me?" Many allied soldiers had gaily promised to return and marry the Italian girls they had left behind and few remembered their promises.
But Fortin remembered and came back in April of 1951, bringing with him from the United States a wedding dress for Anna, then 17.
On March 29, 1951 they were married - the real life Prince Charming and the Cinderella he had rescued on a battlefield.
It was like a fairy tale come true, not only for the long separated sweethearts but for the 4,000 residents of Passiano, all of whom turned out for the wedding.
Flowers rained on the tall, lean American, then 33, and his smiling wife as they left the church through lines of cheering well wishers. The romance that had captured the imagination of every Italian had reached a happy ending.
~ from Reuters, with updated numbers
