Until he was 8 years old, Frank Franssen only knew life under the Nazi occupation.

Then, in late 1944, all that changed.

American troops rolled into the small village of Heerlen, Holland, among them an ambulance driver named Pedro Vera.

After all these years, Franssen and Vera have remained friends and late last year, the two reunited at Vera’s Texas home almost 70 years to that fateful day.

“He was a liberator, he was my hero,” Franssen said. “He liberated us from the Germans.”

Franssen, a long-time Oak Harbor resident since his brother bought the Auld Holland Inn in 1970, has lived a full life as a pilot and later the owner of Franssen Corporation, a construction company.

Back in 1944, Franssen described the war torn countryside as “a bloody mess” when the troops arrived, and Vera, fresh from taking the shore at Normandy, was exhausted.

“The GIs rolled in and we had to vacate our school because it became a field hospital,” Franssen recalled.

Vera recalls that a “young tall beautiful girl” and her brother — Franssen’s older siblings — invited him to their home.

“Her father and mother treated me like I was a hero,” Vera said this week.

As a result of that connection, Franssen and his family have enjoyed a long relationship with the soldier they took in as one of their own after the Nazis’ defeat in World War II.

Prior to the arrival of the Americans, Franssen recalls a bleak period when work time was required by the Nazis and families had to survive on rations. His father, owner of the local butcher shop, caught what animals he could to feed the family, made bread and did “anything to stay alive,” Franssen said.

“When the GIs came in we were kind of looking forward to it,” Franssen said.

For Franssen it was one of the most fun times of his life.

“It was just wonderful,” Franssen said.

Vera would make daily ambulance trips and give Franssen and and his friend rides on the sideboard and offer them chocolate and gum — something they had never had — and c-rations from the military.

In turn, the Franssens took Vera and other American GIs under their wing.

“My mother, who spoke no English, was busy mending clothes for the GIs,” Franssen said.

“The nice part about Pedro is he was fun,” said Franssen who was fascinated with Vera because “he was a cowboy from Texas.”

After about five months the GIs left, but Vera corresponded with Franssen’s older sister, Gerthie, the girl who invited him to her home.

Vera sent post cards from his home town of San Antonio with pictures of the Alamo on it, a detail that proved important.

Franssen became fascinated with the B-17s and the B-24s flying over his village.

“There were thousands of them,” Franssen said. “I always wanted to see what they could see. I wanted to know ‘how does the world look from the top?’ From there I wanted to be a pilot.”

Franssen went on to work in Australia and then came to the United States where he joined the Army serving first as an interpreter then later as a pilot.

He spent three years in the U.S. military and had “a fantastic duty.”

“That is how I got to fly,” Franssen said.

After the service, Franssen worked for a series of commercial airlines and on a stop in San Antonio he came upon the Alamo fort and thought of Vera.

Franssen and he reconnected after many years when he walked to a phone book and found “Pedro P. Vera” listed there. They have stayed in contact for the last 45 years.

“He’s a great guy and I’m happy to have his friendship,” Vera said.