The French​ Connection

A FATEFUL ACT OF HEROISM DURING WORLD WAR II WOULD TIE TOGETHER NOT ONLY TWO MEN IN A LASTING, TRANSATLANTIC FRIENDSHIP, BUT ALSO TWO WOMEN— THE GRANDDAUGHTERS THEY DID NOT LIVE TO SEE.

- Katie Sanders

On an overcast evening last September, at a beach side hotel in Vigo, on Spain’s northwest coast, I took my seat next to the bride at a dinner table reserved for her and her groom’s closest family. The seat assignment was an honor, especially considering that Nathalie Madjar and I had met just once before, three months earlier.

After dinner and speeches, everyone gathered around a piano, and the groom, Florent, sang Elton John’s “Your Song,” dedicating it to Nathalie and me. I never imagined I could feel so connected to someone with whom I’d only ever spent half a day.

But had it not been for her family, I never would have been born.

In the middle of the night on May 6, 1944, my grandfather Murray Simon, a 23-year-old American bomber pilot, parachuted out of a flaming plane, shot down by Nazis over German-occupied France. It was his 12th and final mission during World War II.