Family Found: Sisters Reunited In South Korea Thanks to Private Investigator

Wanda King's life in the United States has been a good one.

But as a child in North Korea, she lived under communism and saw the effects of war. She remembers seeing red skies after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and her mother warning, "Don't you go outside! You're going to be sick." As American bombs fell on her own country during the Korean War, she and her family fled south with hundreds of other refugees to escape the fighting. They ate insects and slept in rice paddies to survive.

"I don't have a happy life when I was young," she said. "I have a hard life."

Although conditions improved after the war, she was still living in poverty in 1962 when she met Ben King, a young soldier from Davie County. He fell in love with her, and he vowed not to leave South Korea without her.

She was 23 when she married him and left her family behind in Seoul. She built her own family in a new country.

Her children grew up with plenty of food and without fear of bombs falling in the night. King, now 68, watched with pride as they married and started forming their own families.

Despite all that she had, King ­mourned what she had lost.

Phone Calls Put Two Soldiers to Rest

May 17, 1983, a young soldier from Portland, James R. Williams, was killed in Korea.

Jim's platoon leader, Tom O'Sullivan, heard the explosions and saw the flames shooting from the tank. Tom crawled into the tank, across molten metal. He cradled Jim in his arms and lifted him out of the tank. Jim died soon after.

For 25 years, Tom wanted to speak to Jim's family in Portland about Jim's death.

In 1983 the Army said no, Tom could not contact the fami ly. After he left the military, Tom searched for years for Jim's relatives.

One, a retired police detective who now works as a private investigator, was able to find Jim Williams' father within "10 to 15 minutes," she says.