Arrived first, on June 6, 1944 in Colleville-sur-Orne, and left last, on July 3, 2023, at 100 years old, the last survivor of the 177 men of the famous battalion of marines of the Kieffer commando, the only French unit to have walked the Normandy beaches. Who else but him to pull off such a coup? It is Léon Gautier all spit out, would have said the abbot of Naurois, the chaplain of the 1st BFMC, who died in 2006, who knew him better than anyone. Born on October 27, 1922 in Rennes, Léon Gautier joined the navy at the age of 17 in February 1940. Less out of passion for the sea than to go to battle. Because at that time, only "the Royal" agreed to take in its ranks young people of her age. Apprentice gunner on the battleship Courbet, he gnaws his brake. Even if he participated in the defense of the ports of Cherbourg and Carentan, the Breton always wanted more. With the Gautiers, it is second nature and the memory of his family killed by the enemy during the Great War is stuck in him...
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