Léon Gautier, the final surviving member of an elite French unit that joined Allied forces within the D-Day invasion to wrest Normandy from Nazi Germany’s management, has died at 100.
The loss of life was introduced on Monday by Romain Bail, the mayor of Ouistreham, an English Channel coastal group the place Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944, and the place Mr. Gautier lived out his ultimate a long time. He had been hospitalized with lung bother, Mr. Bail mentioned.
Mr. Gautier, a nationally recognized determine, met with President Emmanuel Macron final month as a part of commemorations for the 79th anniversary of D-Day.
In France, he was a voice of reminiscence of World Warfare II, and of warning. “The youthful generations need to be informed — they should know,” he informed The Related Press in 2019. “Warfare is ugly. Warfare is distress — distress in every single place.”
Mr. Gautier devoted a lot of his life after the battle to giving interviews, collaborating in commemorations and serving to put collectively a museum in Ouistreham that commemorates the French commandos who helped liberate Normandy.
“He was a father to us, a grandfather to us, an necessary determine of day by day life,” the mayor mentioned. “He was the hero of 1944, the hero of June 6, but additionally the little previous man that everybody knew.”
Léon Gautier was born on Oct. 27, 1922, in Fougères, a village in Brittany, and grew up amid bitter recollections of World Warfare I. He joined the French navy in 1940 at 17. When France fell in June that 12 months to the German blitzkrieg, he shipped off to Britain, the place Gen. Charles de Gaulle of France was rallying his countrymen.
On D-Day, Mr. Gautier and his comrades within the Kieffer Commando unit had been among the many first waves of Allied troops to storm the closely defended seashores of occupied northern France, starting the liberation of western Europe. In an enormous invasion pressure made up largely of American, British and Canadian troopers, Capt. Philippe Kieffer’s commandos ensured that France had feats to be happy with too, after the dishonor of its Nazi occupation, during which some selected to collaborate with Adolf Hitler’s forces.
“For us it was particular,” Mr. Gautier recalled within the 2019 article. “We had been glad to return dwelling. We had been on the head of the touchdown. The British allow us to go a couple of meters in entrance.” He added, “For us it was the liberation of France, the return into the household.”
The commandos got here ashore on what was code-named Sword Seaside, carrying 4 days’ price of rations and ammunition. As they sprinted up the seashore, they lower by barbed wire beneath a hail of bullets. They spent 78 days on the entrance strains, in ever-dwindling numbers. Of the 177 who had waded ashore, simply two dozen escaped loss of life or damage.
Their preliminary goal was a closely fortified bunker a couple of miles away, and it took the commandos 4 hours of preventing to get there and take it. “After we arrived close to the partitions of the bunkers, we threw grenades in by the slits,” Mr. Gautier recalled. He later injured his left ankle leaping off a practice and needed to sit out a lot of the remainder of the battle. His ankle remained painfully swollen for the remainder of his lengthy life.
Mr. Gautier met his spouse, Dorothy, when he was stationed in Britain, and so they had been married for greater than 70 years. After the battle, he labored constructing automotive our bodies after which coaching mechanics, dwelling in Britain, Nigeria and Cameroon earlier than returning to France.
Mr. Gautier mentioned he didn’t like speaking concerning the battle. “The older you get, you suppose that possibly you killed a father, made a widow of a lady,” he mentioned, including, “It’s not straightforward to reside with.”
He constructed a detailed friendship with a former German soldier who had settled in Normandy, Johannes Borner, and the 2 usually spoke collectively concerning the horrors they noticed. In a press release, Mr. Macron mentioned Mr. Gautier had “united the virtues of a warrior and people of a peacemaker.”
Mr. Gautier is survived by many descendants, together with a great-great-grandson who was born on June 6, 2017 — precisely 73 years after D-Day.
