Feel-Good Friday: The 100-Year-Old WWII Veteran Gets Married Edition

There are about 100,000 World War II veterans alive today out of the 16 million Americans who served in that war. In June, the 80th anniversary of D-Day will be commemorated in France. 

Harold Terens will participate in his fourth D-Day celebration in France. He received a medal from President Emmanuel Macron five years ago. This year’s celebration will be extra special. Harold is getting married. 

Did I mention that Harold is 100 years old? His fiancee, Jeanne Swerlin, is 96 years old. The couple and their families will travel to Paris in late May. Harold and a few other surviving WWII veterans will be honored there. Then they will travel to Carentan-les-Marais where they will be married on June 8.  

The families then will travel to the town of Carentan-les-Marais, where the couple plan to be married on June 8 by Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur in a chapel built in the 1600s. Lhonneur said because of the American sacrifice on D-Day, more U.S. flags fly in the area than French.

“Normandy is the 51st state,” he said.

Lhonneur explained legally he is only allowed to marry town residents, but he thinks the local prosecutor will let him make an exception.

“It will be a pleasure for us,” the mayor said.

Harold enlisted in 1942. He shipped out to Great Britain in 1943. He was attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. Those pilots all died in the war. “I loved all those guys. Young men. The average age was 26,” he said.

The man has some stories to tell.

On D-Day — June 6, 1944 — Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle. He said half his company’s pilots died that day.

Terens went to France 12 days later, helping transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs back to England. To him, the Germans seemed happy because they would survive the war. The Americans, however, had been brutalized by their Nazi captors over months and even years.

“They were in a stupor,” he said.

He then went on a secret mission — even he didn’t know his destination. His planes hopscotched North Africa before eventually landing in Tehran. There, he survived a robbery that left him naked in the desert and fearing death until an American military police patrol happened by.

He learned the details of his covert mission when he was deposited at a Soviet airfield in Ukraine. As part of a new strategy, American bombers would fly from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe. They didn’t have enough fuel to return so they would fly to the USSR. Terens’ job was to get the crews fed and the injured treated before they flew their refueled planes home.

Terens soon contracted dysentery, which almost killed him. In another close call, a British barkeep refused to serve him past the mandatory closing time despite his pleadings for just one more drink. Moments after he was kicked out, a German rocket destroyed the pub.

Wow. 

Harold is a widower. He was married to his wife for 70 years. He has two daughters, one son, eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Jeanne also has two daughters and one son. She has seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She was married and widowed twice and lived with a man for 25 years before his death. 

Both Harold and Jeanne grew up in New York City. She grew up in Brooklyn, he in the Bronx.

The daughter of the man Jeanne lived with introduced her to Harold. 

The story of their romance could be a rom-com movie. Harold wasn’t interested in meeting women after his wife died. So, when they were brought together for lunch with the daughter and a friend, Harold ignored Jeanne. One of Harold’s friends took them to dinner the next night and this time was different. It was love at second sight for Harold.

One thing led to another and Harold proposed a few months ago. 

It’s a sweet story. God bless them. They give hope to those in need of it. It’s never too late to be happy.