This story could already be one of the most moving of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, which the whole world is preparing to commemorate on June 6, 2024. One of the American veterans is perhaps waiting for this date more than the others.
Harold Terence, who celebrated his 100th birthday in Florida last August, served as a US Air Force radio operator on June 6, 1944. He then volunteered to help transfer German prisoners to Britain .
And he decided to return to Normandy not only to commemorate the Landing and honor the memory of his comrades, but also to… get married!
It is in fact in Carentan-les-Marais (Manche), a handful of kilometers from Sainte-Mère-Église and very close to the major sites of the military operation, that he wishes to marry his 96-year-old American fiancée.
Hailed by Macron and Trump
“We have indeed received this completely unusual request through the French Consulate in Florida,” smiles Jean-Pierre Lhonor, the mayor of Carentan-les-Marais.
It remains for the municipality to organize the arrangements for this day.
The official date has not yet been set, even if Saturday 8 is mentioned.
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But we can already imagine the emotional charge that this union could arouse, eighty years after everything that Harold Terence experienced here.
Normandy is also definitely an unforgettable land for him since in 2019 President Emmanuel Macron had already awarded him the Legion of Honor at the American cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer (Calvados).
It was then in the presence of the American president at the time, Donald Trump.