Léon Gautier, the last survivor of the 177 Frenchmen who landed on Normandy on 6 June 1944, died on Monday at the age of 100, the Caen Memorial announced on Twitter, confirming a report in the newspaper Ouest-France.
Léon Gautier was the last member of the Kieffer commando, a French battalion of 177 marine riflemen who landed on the Normandy coast on D-Day. He died at 7:40 on Monday morning in a Caen hospital, Mayor of Ouistreham (Normandy) Romain Bail, told AFP.
Born in Rennes in 1922, Léon Gautier joined General de Gaulle's Free France Movement in London in July 1940. He then went off to fight in Cameroon, Congo, Syria and Lebanon before taking part in the Allied landings on 6 June. Since then, he never stopped campaigning "for peace".
“The worst thing you can see is a war. Because you kill people on the other side who have never done anything, who have families and children. All this to achieve what?” the Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour had said, dressed in a suit and tie in his wheelchair at a ceremony to mark his 100th birthday on 27 October 2022.
Gautier with French President Emmanuel Macron. Credit: Belga
French President Emmanuel Macron immediately paid tribute to him in a tweet. “We are not heroes, we only did our duty, he repeated. The last member of the Kieffer commando who landed with his 176 French comrades in Normandy on 6 June 1944, a hero of the Liberation, Léon Gautier has left us. We will not forget him”, said the Head of State.
A father of two, he had lived in Ouistreham since the 1990s. State services have told the mayor of Ouistreham that a national tribute will be paid to him in Normandy.
