Leon Gautier, the last surviving member of a French commando unit that took part in the Normandy landings during World War Two has died. Gautier was born on 27 October 1922 and died on 3 July 2023 at the age of 100.
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Gautier served with the Fusiliers Marins Commando – the only unit of Free French troops to go ashore during D-Day on 6 June 1944.
French President Emmanuel Macron, eulogized the late Gautier, describing him and his comrades as “heroes of the Liberation”.
“We will not forget him,” Mr Macron wrote on Twitter.
« Nous ne sommes pas des héros, nous n’avons fait que notre devoir », répétait-il.
Dernier membre du commando Kieffer qui débarqua avec ses 176 camarades français en Normandie le 6 juin 1944, héros de la Libération, Léon Gautier nous a quittés.
Nous ne l’oublierons pas. pic.twitter.com/6IPx5mjoM7
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— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 3, 2023
Gautier was born in Rennes, Brittany, in the French Third Republic and enlisted in the French Navy after the start of the Second World War.
He fled to the U.K. before the Nazi occupation of France. He fought with the 1er Bataillon de Fusiliers Marins Commandos in the Congo, Syria, and Lebanon before taking part in the invasion of Normandy.
After the war, he became a campaigner for peace, calling war a “misery” that “ends with widows and orphans”. He later settled in the Norman town of Ouistreham, and died in Caen on 3 July 2023, at the age of 100.
Source: abtc.ng
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