Readers have been flooded with dozens of heartrending stories about “that Day” eighty years ago.
The stories are about bravery, sacrifice, heroism, selflessness, patriotism and, yes, tragedy and death.
I cannot resist burdening the reader with one more story related to the “Longest Day.”
This one, however, is about love and marriage a mere 35 miles (as a crow flies) from the sacred beaches of Normandy.
What makes the story even more charming, is that it is about love and marriage between a 100-year-old World War II D-Day veteran and a “youngster of just 96.”
On Saturday, two days after the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Harold Terens and his sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin tied the knot at the town hall of Carentan-les-Marais, France, an important crossroad linking the invading Allied Forces to each other and to other key locations and the site of six days of fierce fighting following the D-Day invasion.
According to Associated Press journalists Sylvie Corbet and Terry Spencer, Terens enlisted in 1942, shipped to England where he was a radio repair technician attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter unit. The 20-year-old corporal “went to France 12 days later, helping transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs to England.
After the Nazi surrender, Terens returned to the U.S. and married his first wife, Thelma, in 1948. She passed away in 2018.
In 2021, Terens met Swerlin, also a widower, and “the rest is history.”
Last week, Terens and Swerlin were flown to France courtesy of Delta Airlines for the D-Day 80th anniversary celebrations and for their wedding.
As the swing of Glenn Miller and other period tunes rang out on the streets, well-wishers — some in WWII-period clothes — were already lined up a good hour before the wedding, behind barriers outside the town hall, with a rousing pipe and drum band also on hand to serenade the happy couple.
After both declaring “oui” to vows read by Carentan’s mayor in English, the couple exchanged rings.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” Terens said.
She giggled and gasped, “Really?”
With Champagne flutes in hand, they waved through an open window to the adoring crowds outside.
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The crowd yelled “la mariée!” – the bride! — to Swerlin, who wore a long flowing dress of vibrant pink. Terens looked dapper in a light blue suit and matching pink kerchief in his breast pocket.
But that was not all.
Terens and Swerlin were invited to a state dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris with none other than Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron, where Macron congratulated the newlyweds and toasted, “(The town of) Carentan was happy to host your wedding, and us, your wedding dinner…”
For those who like statistics:
The collective age of the bride and groom is almost 200.
Terens and Swerlin collectively have 15 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
But only the collective “two” spent the honeymoon in Paris.
Watch the video of the wedding here:
