Léon Gautier, the last French survivor of the Normandy landings, has died
He was 100 years old and was part of the Kieffer commando that landed on D-Day in 1944 and changed the course of the war against Nazi Germany.
(Alain Le Pape / Wikimedia Commons)
Léon Gautier, the last survivor of the 177 Frenchmen who landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, died Monday at the age of 100, the Caen Memorial announced via social media.
Léon Gautier was the last member of a battalion of 177 marine riflemen, later known as Commando Kieffer, to land on the Normandy coast. He died early Monday morning in a hospital in Caen.
Born on Oct. 27, 1922, he enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17 in 1940. As the Caen Memorial recalls, when he learned by radio of the existence of a French troop commanded by General Charles de Gaulle, he left for London in July 1940 and joined the so-called Free France. In 1943, he volunteered to join the commandos being established under Major Philippe Kieffer.
On June 6, 1944, he was one of 177 Frenchmen who landed at Sword Beach in Colleville-Montgomery on D-Day. in which some 156,000 Allied troops seized the French beaches of Normandy in an operation on a scale unprecedented in Europe that marked a turning point in the war against Germany.
On June 6 of this year, Gautier participated in the annual commemoration of the Normandy landings for what would be the final time. French authorities wished to recall, in the words of Minister of Defense Sébastien Lecornu:
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