Léon Gautier, last hero of the Kieffer commando

Léon Gautier is a hero of June 6, 1944. At 100, he is the last survivor of the Kieffer commando, which brings together the men of the 1st battalion of commando marine riflemen (1st BFMC), created in the spring of 1942 in Great Britain by France free and commanded by Lieutenant Commander Philippe Kieffer (1899-1962). The only representatives of France to land on the beaches of Normandy with the allies, 177 men distinguished themselves in the fighting. “We landed thirty minutes before the rest of the troops to neutralize a German battery,” said Léon Gautier in April during a meeting with Norman schoolchildren, reported by the daily Ouest-France. Twenty-seven of them were killed, ten of them on the first day, and twenty-four ended up without injury after 78 days of battle.

Born on October 27, 1922, in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), enlisted in the navy at the age of 17, Léon Gautier was a gunner on the ship Courbet, which diverted to the English coast on June 19, 1940. Sailor of Free France , he participated in cargo convoys, stayed in the Surcouf submarine and became a marine rifleman in Cameroon. Before returning to London in 1943, where he joined, “in the name of patriotism”, the Kieffer commando, integrated into Royal Marine Commando No. 4.

Hug with a former German soldier

In 2014, Léon Gautier told teenagers, and in La Croix, about the Landing: “the imposing naval armada”, formed from England; the “retching” of which the men were caught in the barges; the “thunderous passage of Allied planes”, which were going to bombard the German defense lines; and the “deluge of fire” approaching the shore. That year, for the 70th anniversary of the Landing, in Ouistreham, his moving embrace with former German soldier Johannes Börner, who had become his friend, had gone around the world.

Tuesday June 6, in Colleville-Montgomery (Calvados), near Sword Beach where he had landed with the objective of “cleaning up” the bunkers and neutralizing the Ouistreham casino, Léon Gautier will still be present. The veteran will participate, alongside Emmanuel Macron, in a traditional ceremony in memory of the Kieffer commando. The President of the Republic and the former elite soldier will give the green beret of the marine commandos to marine riflemen who have passed their commando training. As they had done, during the same ceremony, in 2019, for the 75th anniversary of the Landings. The Head of State then paid tribute to the 177 “heroes”: “They were only a handful, of course, but a handful of brave men (…). They allowed this page of history to be written not only in France but with and by French people. »

A unit of the National Navy commandos, recognizable by this green beret worn lying on the right, still bears the name of Kieffer. In 2019, two members of these special forces, belonging to the Hubert commando, Cédric de Pierrepont and Alain Bertoncello, were killed in action during an operation to free hostages in Burkina Faso.

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