Vietnam vet reunites with woman he met in 1969 — thanks to AI and a war memoir

MITCHELL — For more than half a century, Vietnam veteran Jim Anderson held onto a memory — a brief wartime encounter, a father’s untold story, and a promise to one day find a book that hadn’t yet been written.

Now, 56 years after that fleeting afternoon in Sydney, Australia, Anderson’s long wait has finally come full circle.

In April, Anderson was reunited with Robyn (Bond) Wood, an Australian woman he met in 1969 while on leave from Cu Chi, Vietnam, where he was stationed with the 20th Transportation Company hauling helicopter parts. Their reconnection was made possible through persistence, technology and a book called "Twists of Fate."

“It’s been one big twist of fate,” Anderson said, smiling.

In 1969, Anderson chose Australia for his R&R destination. On a return flight to Sydney after visiting Armidale, he struck up a conversation with Wood, then a university student heading home to Melbourne.

“After spending the last 10 months in Vietnam, I was not about to pass up an opportunity to visit with a pretty girl,” Anderson recalled.

They spent a few hours together in Sydney — seeing "Romeo and Juliet," grabbing a meal and talking. Wood told him about her father, Stanley Arthur Bond, a World War II medic who had been captured on Crete and spent four years as a prisoner of war.

Anderson, whose uncle had died in the Pacific during the war, was fascinated. But the two parted ways soon after, with no way to stay in touch — just memories and a single black-and-white photo.

Adam Thury / Mitchell Republic

For decades, Anderson searched for a WWII memoir written by someone named Bond. He had no first name, only fragments: Crete, a POW camp and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. He regularly checked used bookstores and catalogs but came up empty — until last September.

“Thanks to computers and AI, I hit the jackpot,” he said. “I entered the right string of words, and there it was.”

The result was "Twists of Fate," the autobiography of Stanley Arthur Bond, edited by his daughter, Dr. Robyn Wood, and published by Green Hill in August 2023. Anderson ordered a copy and read it — twice.

Anderson contacted the publisher, who connected him with Wood. He sent an email with the old photo and a simple note: “I’ve been waiting for your father’s book for 55 years.”

Wood was skeptical at first.

“I was a little bit suspicious of someone saying that they had met me 55 years ago,” Wood said.

Wood didn't remember the encounter at first, but Anderson’s detailed memory, backed by a wartime letter he’d written home (and which his mother had saved), convinced her.

“He remembered so much,” Wood said. “I had no memory of us. So I was impressed.”

Anderson still had the ticket stubs from "Romeo and Juliet," now part of a Vietnam collection he’s kept over the years.

Adam Thury / Mitchell Republic

As fate would have it, Wood had already planned a trip to Canada to meet newly discovered relatives. With Anderson’s invitation and perfect timing, she made a detour to South Dakota.

On April 7, Anderson and his wife, Joan, picked her up in Rapid City. Together, they visited the Badlands, Mount Rushmore and the Corn Palace — where Anderson pointed out a mural of the Sydney Opera House.

“I have a picture of the Sydney Opera House taken in April of 1969,” Anderson said. “So when I saw it depicted on the Corn Palace, it brought back memories. It gave me even more reason to show Mitchell’s version of a world wonder to a visitor from Down Under.”

Wood didn’t begin editing her father’s memoirs until she retired in 2015. A former research assistant in geology at Melbourne University and later a viticulturist, she finally had time to dig into her father’s writings — a massive collection that spanned his early years, wartime service and post-war life. The project took six to seven years.

“I grew up thinking he was born in New Zealand,” Wood said. “It wasn’t until I started digging that I learned he was actually born in London and spent much of his early life in an orphanage.”

This wasn’t her first editing project — she previously worked on "Elmhurst Bush Nursing Center: 100 Years of Caring," but this one was deeply personal.

“It helped me understand who my father really was, not just as a dad, but as a man shaped by war and survival,” Wood said.

She hopes to one day visit the POW camp where her father was held — now a museum — and walk the same death march route he endured.

As for whether the Andersons will ever make it to Australia to visit Wood?

“Whether or not I get back down there, I don’t know,” Anderson said. “When you’re 80, it gets tougher to travel.”

Still, for two people brought together by a twist of fate — and a long-awaited book — the journey has already gone farther than either could’ve imagined.

“Maybe things would have been different if the internet was around back then,” Wood said with a smile.

“Maybe,” Anderson replied. “But I’m just glad we met again — and that I finally got to read the book.”