Disappearance
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He was the last soldier of the 177 green berets who landed on June 6, 1944 on the Normandy beaches. Died this Monday, July 3, at the age of 100, he tirelessly transmitted for more than fifty years the memory of fighting France.
He was still there, on June 6, 2023, in Colleville-Montgomery (Calvados), wearing his green beret, a black suit and a white shirt. Alongside Emmanuel Macron, with whom he had exchanged in private, he attended a ceremony in tribute to the commando Kieffer. While the Head of State greeted the 21 men who passed the trying course, the best of them knelt down at the height of Léon Gautier, so that he could screw the famous beret on his head. A duty of memory and transmission, to which the veteran was attached. The last of the 177 Frenchmen of the Kieffer commando, the only French unit having landed on the morning of June 6, 1944 on the Normandy beaches, died on Monday July 3, at the age of 100.
“I am well aware that after my disappearance, an important page will turn. When the last direct witness leaves, the event becomes history.wrote Léon Gautier in his memoirs, My Landing (City editions, 2023), quoting Stéphane Grimaldi, the former director of the Mémorial de Caen.
“Last member of the Kieffer commando who landed with his 176 French comrades in Normandy on June 6, 1944, hero of the liberation, Léon Gautier has left us. We won’t forget it”reacted on Monday Emmanuel Macron. “With a heavy heart on learning of the disappearance of Léon Gautier, the last of the 177 brave Frenchmen who took part in the Normandy landingsalso greeted Elisabeth Borne. We won’t forget