WEST POINT, Va. — There may be no place like home, but for John and Eleanor Harper, traveling beyond the beauty of coastal Virginia provides the spice of life.
"We enjoy traveling. We have been to Alaska. We have been to the Caribbean. We have been to Ireland and Maine. We have been to several places," John Harper said.
Recently, the couple from West Point stamped their passports while visiting new destinations in Germany. But the landmarks on their itinerary aren't found in any travel guides.
"I did not know how I was going to really feel," John said. "It was not a vacation."
On the trip, John chased the past.
"When I hit those places and I think about them, it's still emotional," John said.
John was determined to visit the places that altered the life of the man he always looked up to.
John's father, John Paul Harper, served as a nose gunner on a B-24 called Daisy Mae during Word War II. On August 4, 1944, John's bomber was crippled by flak.
"Dad was 19," John said. "A teenager. The plane could catch fire or explode. There was a decision to bail out at the time by the pilot."
The airman and the crew parachuted into enemy territory.
"He was asked many times were you scared. He said, 'Everyone was scared,'" John said.
When he landed, John said it was the beginning of a nine-month nightmare.
In 2018, the elder John shared his recollections of that fateful day.
Watch: WWII veteran opens up about unthinkable trek as POW
"My chute opened when I finally settled down from swinging it was very quiet. I heard a guy hollering. It was a German soldier and he had a rifle pointed at me."
The teenager spent several miserable months in a POW camp.
"It only got worse yes," the younger John said.
As the German army was collapsing, John and thousands of American prisoners were marched 600 miles in brutal conditions.
"My dad never took his boots off from day one until the end of the March. Not one time. He said if you took them off, you might never get them back on," John said.
The so-called Shoe Leather Express lasted 86 days. Hundreds died along the way.
"This was done without food or a very little food. Without water. In some of the most harsh conditions that Europe has experienced," the younger John said.
When the Americans were finally rescued, the six-foot-tall Harper weighed 91 pounds.
"We were fatigued and we were starving but we were free. I can't tell you how good that felt that day," the elder Harper said in 2018.
It was his father's odyssey 82 years ago that drew a curious son across the Atlantic to retrace his father's steps.
"It probably allowed me to create a more emotional connection to the story," the younger John said.
A historian in Germany who researched Harper's doomed B-24 led John and families of other crew members to the crash site.
"Just an incredible experience to do what he did and preserve this history," John said.
Metal detectors helped turn up relics of the Daisy Mae buried deep in a field.
"It is so exciting to be out there on the hunt."
"He was so excited he couldn't stand still he was going from one hole to the other trying to find parts," John's wife Eleanor said.
The 74-year-old son visited the site where his father was captured, the camp where he was held prisoner and the spot where John would sleep during the Death March.
"You are standing in this barn. And then all of a sudden you realize my dad was in this barn."
The Germans even unveiled a new memorial dedicated to the Daisy Mae.
Once strangers, the German hosts and the American tourists grew close over a dark chapter in shared history.
"I'm met numerous German people incredibly caring people," John said.
John returned to West Point with souvenirs of a different sort.
"Yes, I actually came back with parts of the Daisy Mae," John said.
John is also unpacking a suitcase full of answers to lingering questions.
"Your door opens up. You have a choice," John said. "You go through the door and you shut the door. You never know when you what you're going to miss when you shut the door."
"I could feel John's emotion at every stop," Eleanor said. "I was very happy because I think and knew it would mean a lot to him to see what his dad went through."
John's dad died in 2022. But in a way, the WWII veteran was walking with his son every step of this journey.
Author John Steinbeck once wrote "People don't take trips, trips take people." For frequent traveler John Harper Jr., this journey to a place of so much pain was the trip he never knew he needed.
"Turned into a much different experience than I was expecting," John said. "If I hadn't done this, it would've been the biggest mistake of my life. Because if I miss this, I would've regretted it forever."
Watch Greg McQuade's stories on CBS 6 and WTVR.com. If you know someone Greg should profile, email him at greg.mcquade@wtvr.com.
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