Mr. Gautier met with President Emmanuel Macron as a part of commemorations for the 79th anniversary of D-Day final month. He was additionally an necessary voice of reminiscence of World Struggle II, and of warning.
“The youthful generations must be advised, they should know,” Mr. Gautier advised the Related Press in 2019. “Struggle is ugly. Struggle is distress, distress in every single place.”
He devoted a lot of his life after the struggle ensuring that classes from the struggle should not forgotten by giving interviews, collaborating in commemorations and serving to put collectively the museum in Ouistreham that commemorates the French commandos who helped liberate Normandy.
Mr. Gautier was born on Oct. 27, 1922, within the Brittany village Fougeres. He joined the French navy in 1940 and, when France fell in June that 12 months to the Nazis, he went to England and joined the federal government in exile of French Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
On D-Day, Mr. Gautier and his comrades within the Kieffer Commando unit had been among the many first waves of Allied troops to storm the closely defended seashores of Nazi-occupied northern France, starting the liberation of western Europe.
Within the large invasion pressure made up largely of American, British and Canadian troopers, French Capt. Philippe Kieffer’s commandos ensured that France had feats to be pleased with, too, after the dishonor of its Nazi occupation, when some selected to collaborate with Adolf Hitler’s forces.
They got here ashore carrying 4 days’ price of rations and ammunition and sprinted up the seashore with their heavy sacks.
The commandos spent 78 days straight on the entrance traces, in ever-dwindling numbers. Of the 177 who waded ashore on the morning of June 6, simply two dozen escaped loss of life or harm, Mr. Gautier amongst them.
Their preliminary goal was a closely fortified bunker. Though the strongpoint was only a few miles away, it took them 4 hours of preventing to get there and take it. On the seashore, they lower by way of barbed wire below a hail of bullets.
He later injured his left ankle leaping off a practice and was compelled to sit down out a lot of the remainder of the struggle. His ankle remained painfully swollen for the remainder of his lengthy life.
After the struggle, Mr. Gautier labored constructing automotive our bodies after which coaching mechanics, residing in England, Nigeria and Cameroon earlier than returning to France.
Mr. Gautier mentioned he didn’t like speaking in regards to the struggle: “The older you get, you assume that possibly you killed a father, made a widow of a girl. … It’s not simple to reside with.”
However his testimonies to colleges had been an important a part of Normandy’s efforts to recollect the struggle. He additionally constructed an in depth friendship with a former German soldier who settled in Normandy, Johannes Borner, and the 2 usually spoke collectively in regards to the horrors they noticed.
Mr. Gautier met his spouse, Dorothy Banks, when he was stationed in England they usually had been married for greater than 70 years till her loss of life in 2016. Survivors embody a great-great-grandson, born on June 6, 2017 — precisely 73 years after D-Day.
