Target Ploesti Joe Wallace and Bill Dotson were part of the B- 24 Liberators of the 454th Bombardment Group (H). This painting by Bill Newton depicts the planes leaving target over Ploesti, Romania during WWII. Many of today's old soldiers have tales of miraculous survivals and hair- - raising escapades during WWII. And they share a camaraderie that goes all the way back to their fighting days over 60 years ago.

Joe Wallace of Columbia had a reunion with what he thought must be a ghost from his past Thursday, July 5, 2007.

"For 40 years I thought he was dead," he says. "And he thought I was. Now here we are, face to face again. A long way from the 20- - year- olds who faced the Axis in Europe."

Joe and Marjorie Wallace's visitors were his old combat buddy, Bill Dotson and his wife, who now live in Houston, Tex. The two men, Navigator Joe and Tail Gunner Bill, were part of a crew of a B- 24 bomber that crashed in April, 1944, over Ploesta, Romania.

"The bomb bay doors came open, and the partisans on the ground thought we were the enemy getting ready to bomb them. They sent up ack- ack and crippled our plane. Some of the crew had time to bail out with parachutes; some of us went on with the plane, which made a landing at Brindisi Italy with about a teaspoon of gas left.

"We were told there were no survivors of the jump."

Bill Dotson had bailed out, found his way in the dark to a big tree, and hid in it until daylight. Then a local partisan helped him, and he made his way back to Allied territory on foot.

It took 40 years for the two to find each other. That's when their Air Corps unit organized a reunion, and the two names turned up on the active list.

Joe Wallace and Bill Dotson set up an occasional contact, phone call, and letter, but until July of 2007, they did not see each other. The Dotsons were traveling to North Carolina from their home in Texas and arranged to stop by Columbia for a personal visit with the Wallaces.

They don't expect to attend any more Air Corps reunions. "It's hard to find even one person there that I ever knew," says Joe Wallace. But the Dotsons and the Wallaces will hold onto the bond that has held them for so many years.