War Buddies Renew Bonds 50 Years Later : Reunion: Each had feared the other was dead. Efforts to find one another pay off after a frustrating half-century of looking.

For 50 years, Eddie Kravitz was tormented by memories of the night he thought his World War II buddy had been stabbed to death by another American serviceman.

And for 50 years, Patrick Conroy wondered what became of the friend he met as they were preparing to ship out from New York, bound for Europe.

Kravitz and Conroy were reunited in early June after a half-century spent unable to forget a bond formed in two months waiting to go to war.

“It’s the biggest thrill of my life,” Conroy said, sitting in a lawn chair in the front yard of Kravitz’s Richmond home. “All these years, I didn’t think anybody cared. Nobody else ever made an attempt to contact me, but this guy did.”

The men spent much of the time swapping old stories. Conroy talked about his two children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and Kravitz and his wife talked of their five children and one grandchild.

The two met in February, 1945, fresh out of boot camp. Kravitz was 18, Conroy 20. They became friends who toured New York during furlough.

The privates were assigned to an Army replacement depot in Worms, Germany, in early April and prepared to move to the front lines the following day.

That night, Conroy was stabbed by a fellow soldier when he tried to break up a fight. The knife punctured a lung and nearly reached his heart.

Kravitz left the next morning for the front, believing Conroy had been fatally wounded.

The Allies prevailed a few weeks later, and Kravitz returned home. Conroy, meanwhile, began a journey that took him to hospitals in France, England and Memphis, Tenn.

Conroy, 70, a retired asbestos installer, was always reminded of the stabbing: He has pain when he lifts his left arm and has flashbacks of the attack.

Kravitz, 68, a draftsman, also couldn’t forget. “It’s been on my mind all my life,” he said.

When a co-worker in May showed Kravitz a newspaper clipping on a book about finding former military personnel, he called the publisher.

A few days later, Lt. Col. Richard Johnson--author of “How to Locate Anyone Who Is or Has Been in the Military”--began searching for Conroy.

Johnson found him a few weeks later in Hollidaysburg, Pa., and gave him Kravitz’s phone number.

“It was an emotional thing,” Kravitz said. “When you speak to someone for the first time after so many years, it is kind of awkward.”

Conroy, who drove from his home to Richmond, had also driven in search of Kravitz in 1956.

In 1958, Kravitz searched for Conroy in Pittsburgh, where Conroy had lived right after the war. Kravitz did it again in 1970.

“It was futile,” he said.

Now, they have a chance to catch up.

“I would love to carry it on, pick up our relationship where we left off,” Conroy said.