11 March 2024 , 23:11
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A 100-year-old World War Two veteran will marry his fiancee in a French town just miles from the beaches where the Allies liberated France from Nazi rule.
Harold Terens is set to be honoured by the French government in June for his contribution to the war effort 80 years on from D-Day. While there, the WWII vet will marry his fiancee Jeanne Swerlin, 96.
“I love this girl — she is quite special,” Terens, who remains full of energy despite his age, told the Associated Press. The pair first began dating in 2021 and their relationship has gone from strength to strength. “He’s an amazing guy, amazing,” Swerlin said, following a quick dance to “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars. “He loves me so much and he says it.
"And my god, he’s the greatest kisser,” the 96-year-old added. Despite only meeting in their 90s, Harold and Jeanne have a shared history, having both grown up in New York.
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World War II veteran Harold Terens, 100, right, and Jeanne Swerlin, 96, smile for a photo ahead of their June weddingDuring her teens, Jeanne, who is widowed, dated soldiers who would gift her souveniers from their time at war, from dog tags to knives and even a gun. Harold, meanwhile, enlisted in 1942 and was quickly shipped to Great Britain where he joined a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician.
The D-Day veteran told AP of how his squad mates all died in the war. “I loved all those guys. Young men. The average age was 26,” he said.
On June 6, 1944, D-Day, he played a crucial role in repairing French planes so they could reenter the fray. The 100-year-old would go on to transport German POWs and freed American soldiers back to England. The German soldiers, he said, were happy to have simply survived the war, while the Americans had been hardened by the treatment of their Nazi captures.
Harold was later assigned to a secret mission, bombing AXIS powers in Eastern Europe. During his deployment, he contracted a near-fatal case of dysentery. In 1948, he married his first wife Thelma and together they had two daughters and a son. Thelma passed away in 2018 after 70 years of marriage to Harold.
Allied troops assaulted Normandy 80 years agoAnd at first, Harold was reluctant to dive back into romance after so many years of marriage. “I didn’t even look at her. I didn’t even talk to her,” he said, speaking of his first encounter with Swerlin.
“I looked at him. He looked at me,” Swerlin said, but “it was like nothing.” Harold ultimately came around, falling for his fiancee on their second meeting while the pair were out for dinner with friends.
“He was introducing me to the whole world, ‘I want you to meet my girl, my sweetheart,’ and I didn’t even know him more than two days,” Swerlin told AP. “Being in love is not just for the young. We get butterflies just like everybody else.”
The pair, who are both widowed, want people to know love isn't just for the youngHarold proposed to his beloved partner just a few months ago, getting down on one knee to present her with a ring. Their wedding will come during Harold’s fourth D-Day celebration in France, with the war hero earning a medal from President Emmanuel Macron five years ago.
They will then travel to the town of Carentan-les-Marais to be married on June 8 in a chapel built in the 1600s.