As a 22-year-old in 1944, Lazar Karakashev, from the tiny Bulgarian village of Churen, had rushed to the mountainside where an American bomber crashed and helped pull from the wreckage the body of a pilot -- who had stayed at the controls to allow his crew to bail out.
The pilot, 1st Lt. John D. Crouchley, 26, of Providence, Rhode Island, was the enemy at the time -- Bulgaria was still allied with Germany -- but the villagers treated the remains with respect. They dug a grave, prayed for the soul of the pilot, and fashioned a cross to mark the site.
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