WWII sailor's appeal successful

IAIN MCGREGOR/The Press

'GOOD-LOOKING GIRL': Kath Rollitt, now 83, pictured inset in 1947, met Carl Sides in 1943.

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A former United States sailor who spent a day with a beautiful Christchurch girl during World War II has found her 66 years later.

Carl Sides, 88, who lives in Auburn, Alabama, wrote to The Press last month in an effort to get in touch with Kaye Welton, a Christchurch girl he met on January 15, 1943.

His letter in The Press on Tuesday, prompted Welton, now Kath Rollitt, to reply.

Rollitt, 83, remembered the day she spent with Sides in Christchurch at the peak of war.

"I got the shock of my life. I couldn't believe it after all these years," she said after reading the letter.

Rollitt, who lives in Rangiora with husband Keith, said she would like to get in touch with Sides.

Sides was looking for gramophone records for his cabin on a tanker, the ET Bedford, when Rollitt, who was then 17, spotted him in a Colombo St music store.

The shop did not have any records and the staff were having trouble with Sides' accent, so Rollitt decided to help out.

"I knew of some second-hand shops that sold used ones [records] and took him around town," she said.

Rollitt then walked with Sides to the railway station.

"He asked, 'will you write to me?' I said 'yes'. I wrote every week until the end of the war," Rollitt said.

Rollitt visited Alabama in the mid-1970s, but she did not know where to find Sides.

Speaking from Alabama last night, Sides said he was looking forward to speaking to Rollitt.

He said he remembered her as a "very nice-looking girl".

"She came with me this record shop to get some records and I told her, 'I don't know when I'll get to see you again – we're leaving tomorrow'. I think we exchanged a couple of letters, but I lost her address."

- © Fairfax NZ News