As D-Day memories fade, veteran grapples with violence of war

SWORD BEACH, France (Reuters) – Leon Gautier landed on Sword Beach in a hail of enemy fire on June 6, 1944, one of the first wave of French commandos to storm the Normandy beachfront defended by Hitler’s troops. Seventy-five years on, he still grapples with the memories.

Today, 96-year-old Gautier, his wit quick and memory sharp, lives just a few hundred metres (yards) from a German bunker he and comrades among the special forces of French Captain Philippe Kieffer were tasked with securing before pushing inland.

For the former marine commando, commemorations in June marking the 75th anniversary since more than 150,000 allied troops invaded France to drive out Nazi Germany forces will be a time to reflect on fallen friends and foes alike.

“War is a misery. Not all that long ago, and perhaps you find this silly, but I would think ‘perhaps I killed a young lad, perhaps I orphaned children, perhaps I widowed a woman or made a mother cry,'” Gautier said wistfully.

“I didn’t want that, I’m not a bad man. You kill a man who’s done nothing to you, that’s war and you do it for your country.”

Gautier was 17 when Hitler’s forces occupied France. Too young to join the army, he enrolled in the navy and was aboard one of the last French warships to sail for Britain to join the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle as the Germans swept across the northern half of France in 1940.