As D-Day landings fade from memory, a veteran grapples with violence of war


SWORD BEACH, France (Reuters) - Leon Gautier landed on Sword Beach in a hail of enemy fire on June 6, 1944, one of the first wave of French commandos to storm the Normandy beachfront defended by Hitler's troops. Seventy-five years on, he still grapples with the memories.

Today, 96-year-old Gautier, his wit quick and memory sharp, lives just a few hundred metres (yards) from a German bunker he and comrades among the special forces of French Captain Philippe Kieffer were tasked with securing before pushing inland.

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