Leon Gautier: Final French D-Day fighter dies aged 100

The final surviving French D-Day fighter, Leon Gautier, has died aged 100.

Mr Gautier was a part of a French commando unit alongside different Allied forces within the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944 – the most important sea invasion in historical past that finally liberated Western Europe from Nazi management.

Only a number of males from the 177-strong French battalion escaped demise or damage that day – considered one of them being Mr Gautier.

In his later years, he would decry warfare as “ugly” and rife with “misery”.

The veteran’s demise was introduced by mayor Roman Bail of Ouistreham, a commune in Normandy the place the Allies landed virtually 80 years in the past and the place the Frenchman spent his remaining a long time.

Mr Gautier had been in hospital for the previous week affected by lung hassle, Mr Bail mentioned.

‘Hero of 1944, but additionally the little previous man everybody knew’

The mayor praised Mr Gautier’s affect as “a father to us, a grandfather to us, an important figure of daily life” and “the hero of 1944, the hero of June 6, but also the little old guy that everyone knew”.

Mr Gautier was born in 1922 and joined the navy in 1940. He can be transferred to England later that 12 months when France fell to Nazi occupation.

On D-Day, Mr Gautier and his fellow troops, underneath the command of Captain Philippe Kieffer, had been among the many first to cost the German-controlled seashores in Normandy.

Mr Gautier recalled how the unit was “at the head of the landing” with the British forces letting them go “a few metres in front”.

He mentioned: “We were being shot at, but we shot at them too. When we arrived near the walls of the bunkers, we threw grenades in through the slits.

“For us, it was the liberation of France, the return into the household… we had been completely satisfied to return residence.”

Mr Gautier injured his ankle, which sidelined him for a lot of the rest of the warfare.

After it ended, he labored within the automotive business constructing automobile our bodies and coaching mechanics, residing in England, Nigeria and Cameroon earlier than returning to his homeland.

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French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a tribute to the centenarian saying: “The last member of the Kieffer commando who landed with his 176 French comrades in Normandy on June 6, 1944, hero of the Liberation, Léon Gautier has left us. We won’t forget him.”

Mr Gautier is survived by many descendants – together with a great-great-grandson, born on 6 June 2017 – precisely 73 years after D-Day.