The incredible story of World War II: 'I found out that my older sister is my mother'

When Albert Gilmore needed a birth certificate to marry, the woman he considered his older sister was rather reluctant to give this document to him. Opening the evidence, he understood why. It turned out that the man whom he had known for 21 years as an older sister was his biological mother. Information about the father was even more amazing.

Фото: Depositphotos

“It was hard to come to terms with,” Gilmore recalls. He also learned that all this time he was raised by his grandparents, writes Air force.

He began asking Ruby Gilmore, a new mother, about her father, because on the birth certificate there was a dash instead of a name. What he heard in response more than surprised him.

Albert was named after his father, Albert Carlow of Calis, Maine, who was one of 300 of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Northern Ireland during World War II.

Ruby was 17 years old when she met a young American soldier stationed near her house in the village of Eglinton, County Londonderry.

Albert's parents broke up in the spring of 1944, when his father was sent to Normandy to participate in the landing of the Allied forces in Europe.

Ruby gave birth in November and named her son after her father, who she believed was killed in action.

Albert the son, having learned the family secret, decided not to tear up the past anymore out of respect for his relatives.

But almost 35 years later, at the end of the 1990's, Albert’s daughter Karen Cook decided to learn more about her father’s life, without informing him of this.

“Meeting my relatives was the best gift I could have given my father,” says Karen, who knew from an early age that her grandfather was an American soldier.

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She managed to find one of Albert’s aunts at the address that her grandmother Ruby had memorized 50 years ago. Private Albert Carlow wrote it on the back of a pack of cigarettes.

Albert the son believes that the fateful events that followed were due to Karen’s determination.

During an overnight telephone conversation with his aunt, he learned the sad news that his father had already died 20 by that time. But, to his joy, it turned out from the conversation that his grandmother was still alive and that he had two half-brothers.

Aunt Alberta faxed a photo of his father. When he saw the image, he did not immediately believe it - his father looked so much like him.

Albert and Karen went to America to meet with relatives, which, according to him, was like a dream come true.

“It all seemed incredible,” he recalls. “They immediately told me that you are an exact copy of your father – your habits, your appearance, your whole appearance.”

“I didn’t have to prove or explain anything, everyone already knew who I was. I felt at home there."

Then Albert met his grandmother, and then went to his father's grave.

“There was snow on the gravestone and I had to brush it off to see his name. I felt at that moment as if a stone had been removed from me. My life made sense again,” he says. “The wait was over and I no longer had to worry about the past.”

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When Albert returned home, he showed Ruby a photograph of his father.

“He started crying, it was hard for her to relive it all again,” says Albert. “According to her, he was a well-mannered and kind man, and they immediately fell in love with each other.”

As Albert found out, after landing in Normandy, his father was sent to Africa, and therefore he was unable to return to Northern Ireland, as he had promised Ruby. At the end of the war he was sent straight home to the States.

But until the end of his life he kept coins from Northern Ireland.

According to Albert, a few days before his mother died, they had another conversation that excited him.

“She squeezed my hand and said - forgive me, I know that I deprived you of an important part of your life. And I answered - you have nothing to ask for forgiveness for.”

Albert will soon be 75 years old and he wants to tell about this story because he believes that it is not unique - there were many such children of American soldiers in Britain, and many of them find it difficult to talk about the past.

“This was all hidden for many years,” he says. “Nobody told me anything about this family secret.” If a child was born out of wedlock, it was considered that he did not exist at all. Many such people went through their entire lives and died without ever knowing the whole truth.”

“I hope that the truth about these fates does not disappear.”

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