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Léon Gautier has died at the age of 100

Photo: CHRISTIAN HARTMANN / REUTERS

Léon Gautier is dead. He was the last surviving member of the French commando unit that went ashore alongside the Allied troops on D-Day. Gautier was one of 177 French soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy defended by Nazi troops in 1944. The veteran lived to be 100 years old.

In France, Gautier was a well-known figure. After the war, he devoted himself to the task of ensuring that the lessons of the war were not forgotten. He gave interviews and attended commemorations. He also supported the construction of the museum in Ouistreham, which commemorates the French commandos who helped liberate Normandy.

Just last month, Gautier met French President Emmanuel Macron as part of the commemorations of the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Macron described Gautier and his comrades as "heroes of liberation." We will not forget him," Macron wrote on Twitter.

Gautier was born on October 27, 1922 in the Breton village of Fougeres. In 1940, at the age of 17, he joined the Navy. When France fell victim to the Nazi blitzkrieg in June of the same year, he traveled to England, where French General Charles de Gaulle gathered compatriots ready for battle around him. Gautier and his comrades from the Kieffer commando were among the first waves of Allied troops to storm the Nazi-occupied beaches of northern France, thus initiating the liberation of Western Europe.

20,000 civilians died in Normandy

The landing of the Allied forces in Normandy on June 6, 1944, the so-called D-Day, marked the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe from Nazism. For the largest landing in the history of the war, the Allies had about 150,000 soldiers in 3100 landing craft. From the air, the advance of the Allied troops was prepared and supported by 7,500 aircraft.

By the time of the conquest of Paris in August 1944, about 200,000 Germans and 70,000 allies are said to have been killed. In Normandy, which was devastated by the fighting, up to 20,000 civilians died.

The commandos spent 78 days straight at the front, with their numbers shrinking further and further. Of the 177 who went ashore on the morning of June 6, only two dozen escaped death or injury, including Gautier.

Gautier once said that he doesn't like to talk about war: "The older you get, the more you think about the fact that you may have killed a father or made a wife a widow. It's not easy to live with."

jpa/AP