The wedding ring of WW2 pilot John Thompson was returned to his sister Dorothy Webster recently, after it was lost in 1944 when his plane crashed during a secret mission in Albania, where he aided locals who were fighting the Nazis.
Jaho Cala, a local man, found the ring in the 1960s, though he was reluctant to pass it on to the Communist authorities. Instead, he gave it to his son with the aim of it eventually being returned to its rightful owner.
His son, Xhemil, contacted various embassies not long after his father’s death and the piece was then traced back to John, a special operation flight engineer from Derbyshire who had unfortunately lost his life during the operaration.
Its inscription of ‘Joyce and John’ was key to helping locate its owner, and Xhemil was delighted to have finally fulfilled his father’s wishes of returning the ring. He commented:
“I will go to his grave and say rest in peace for your dying wish has been fulfilled.”
This charming little tale demonstrates how the symbol of two people binding themselves together can often have such an impact on those around them, and a top wedding photographer from Liverpool and the surrounding region will certainly be considerate of this when shooting the special day.
In this case, however, the wedding of John and Joyce also contributed to the bond shared by a father and a son, miles away in another part of the world.
