A few months before the USAF retired me, September, 19669, I invited the senior Sergeants (who had been in WWII) to come to the chapel annex for a lunch of coffee and sandwiches. They were asked to be ready to tell of an interesting incident in their career.
One man, (how I wish I had saved his name!), told of being in England when V-E day came. All action was abruptly ceased and, with his B-17 grounded, he took a week furlough and went to London.

While he wandered through London, orders came from Washington that his plane with crew would leave immediately for the States. Unable to find him in London, the plane left without him.
It never reached the States, but was lost in the Atlantic.

Unaware that he had not been aboard, Washington notified his mother that he had been lost.