Near Normandy Beaches, 100-Year-Old WWII Veteran Weds 96-Year-Old Bride | EUROtoday

CARENTAN-LES-MARAIS, France (AP) — Together, the collective age of the bride and groom was almost 200. But World War II veteran Harold Terens and his sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin proved that love is everlasting as they tied the knot Saturday inland of the D-Day seashores in Normandy, France.

Their respective ages — he's 100, she's a teenager of simply 96 — made their nuptials an virtually double-century celebration.

Terens known as it ″the most effective day of my life.″

On her means into the nuptials, the bubbly bride-to-be stated: “It's not just for young people, love, you know? We get butterflies. And we get a little action, too.

The location was the elegant stone-worked town hall of Carentan, a key initial D-Day objective that saw ferocious fighting after the June 6, 1944, Allied landings that helped rid Europe of Adolf Hitler's tyranny.

Like other towns and villages across the Normandy coast where nearly 160,000 Allied troops came ashore under fire on five code-named beaches, it's an effervescent hub of remembrance and celebration on the 80th anniversary of the deeds and sacrifices of young men and women that day, festooned with flags and bunting and with veterans feted like rockstars.

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 “yes” to vows learn by Carentan's mayor in English, the couple exchanged rings.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Terens stated.

She giggled and gasped, “Really?”

With Champagne flutes in hand, they waved by an open window to the adoring crowds exterior.

“To everyone's good health. And to peace in the world and the preservation of democracy all over the world and the end of the war in Ukraine and Gaza,” Terens stated as he and his bride then clinked glasses and drank.

The crowd shouted “the bride!” – the bride! — to Swerlin, who wore an extended flowing gown of vibrant pink. Terens seemed dapper in a lightweight blue go well with and matching pink kerchief in his breast pocket.

And they're promised a really particular wedding-night get together: They have been invited to the state dinner on the Elysee Palace on Saturday evening with President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden, the mayor stated.

The marriage ceremony was symbolic, not binding in legislation. Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonor's workplace stated he wasn't empowered to wed foreigners who aren't residents of Carentan, and that the couple, who’re each American, hadn't requested legally binding vows. However, they may at all times full these formalities again in Florida in the event that they wished.

Honor likes to say that Normandy is virtually the 51st state of the USA, given its reverence and gratitude for Allied troopers and the sacrifices of tens of hundreds who by no means made it dwelling from the Battle of Normandy.

“Love is eternal, yes, maybe,” the mayor stated, referring to the newlyweds, though his feedback additionally fittingly describe the sentiments of many Normans for veterans.

“I hope for them the best happiness together.”

Dressed in a Forties gown that belonged to her mom, Louise, and a purple beret, 73-year-old Jane Ollier was amongst spectators who waited for a glimpse of the lovebirds. The couple, each widowed, grew up in New York City: she in Brooklyn, he within the Bronx.

“It's so touching to get married at that age,” Ollier stated. “If it can bring them happiness in the last years of their lives, that’s fantastic.”

The WWII veteran first visited France as a 20-year-old US Army Air Forces corporal shortly after D-Day. Terens enlisted in 1942 and, after transport to Britain, was hooked up to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter unit as their radio restore technician.

On D-Day, Terens helped restore planes coming back from France so they may be a part of the battle. He stated half his firm's pilots died that day. Terens himself went to France 12 days later, serving to transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs to England. Following the Nazi give up in May 1945, Terens once more helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England earlier than he shipped again to the US a month later.

Swerlin made it abundantly clear that her new centenarian husband doesn't lack for rizz.

“He's the greatest kisser ever, you know?” she proudly declared earlier than they embraced enthusiastically for TV cameras.

“All right! That’s it for now!” Terens stated as he got here up for air.

To which she rapidly quipped: “You mean there’s more later?”

AP journalist Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale contributed to this report.