France’s last surviving D-Day commando joins 79th anniversary commemorations

Issued on: 06/06/2023 – 16:46

Gautier, 100, presented a student marine commando with his green beret at a passing out parade at Colleville-Montgomery, near where a 21-year-old Gautier had landed on Sword Beach in a hail of enemy fire.

Gautier was one of 177 French green berets under the command of Captain Philippe Kieffer who took part in the Normandy landings. More than 150,000 allied troops invaded France to drive out Nazi Germany forces.

>> Read more : Léon Gautier, infatigable héraut de la mémoire du Débarquement du 6 juin 1944

At Tuesday’s ceremony, the young marine knelt down on one knee to allow Gautier, sat in a wheelchair to Macron’s side, to straighten his beret.

In 2019, Gautier recounted on the occasion of the 75th D-Day anniversary how French troops had been the first to wade chest-deep onto Sword Beach.

“Your honour,” Gautier recalled British Colonel Robert Dawson telling the French green berets. “We went in only a few seconds ahead. It was a symbolic gesture.”

“By the end of the day I didn’t have many bullets left.”

(Reuters)