These images were filmed
on June 6, 1944. On that day,
150,000 Allied soldiers landed on the French coast. Their mission:
to break through the wall of cannon built by Hitler's army. Among the soldiers, a handful of Frenchmen. 177 volunteers
in the first French commando unit in history. Léon Gautier, aged 22,
took part in the first wave of the assault. OK, that's legendary,
but what the films of the era don't tell us is how the soldiers
themselves experienced the landings. Young Léon Gautier survived. Years later, he confided his story
to a journalist on a small tape recorder. - Hello?
- Does that work? There, that works very well. An off-camera conversation in which
the last French veteran of June 6
tells his version of the longest day. And now, the rest
of our news. On July 13,
1940, young Léon Gautier answered General de Gaulle's call
to join the Free French in London. I joined de Gaulle because
we were continuing the war, and a German-occupied France
was not what I wanted. In Great Britain,
the disastrous 1940 campaign had left its mark. It was no longer time
for major operations. A realist, Churchill
validated the creation of a new type of military unit: commandos. Small groups of highly-trained fighters,
capable of carrying out targeted actions. After a few setbacks,
these special units proved their effectiveness,
winning the admiration of Philippe Kieffer, a French soldier
who had taken refuge in London. Kieffer immediately tried to convince
the military authorities that the French could themselves take part
in the liberation of their country. They agreed. A handful of Frenchmen trained
with the British commandos went into action
alongside them. In late spring 1944, after
several months of training, the young Frenchmen were finally briefed
on the mission of their lifetime. We left for Sheffield in
a secret camp in May. The British were very cautious. Anyone who tried to escape from the camp
would be shot on sight by the Americans, who guarded the camp with a no-man's-land. There, we were briefed on the work
we had to do, with plans and models. They told us: "This is what awaits you." And then, when we were shown these plans,
the people of Le Havre quickly recognized the coastline
and said, "That's it, we're disembarking at Ouistreham." Ouistreham, code-named Sword Beach,
was one of the 5 landing beaches. A landing on an
unprecedented scale. More than 1,200 warships,
thousands of barges and almost 200,000 soldiers
were involved on a single day. The objective: to liberate the beaches
and several towns in Normandy, to ensure the arrival of millions
of Allied soldiers later on. In Ouistreham,
the French and British commandos had their work cut out for them. The 2,000 Germans
assigned to the area had transformed the small seaside resort
into a fortress. Around 100 villas were demolished to make way
for defensive works and around 20 artillery pieces. Of the former casino,
the Germans kept only the basement, on which they built
a reinforced concrete combat post. But above all, there's the great bunker,
a 17m-high mass of reinforced concrete that directs the batteries
and keeps watch over the bay for a radius of 50km. As for the beach,
it's riddled with barbed wire, mines and anti-tank obstacles. The Allies knew the operation
would be tricky. Secretly,
headquarters forecast 50% losses. Léon Gautier
and his commando comrades have all written their wills. Kieffer told us before leaving: "There may
not be 10 of you who will come back intact. Anyone who doesn't want to leave should come and see me, I wouldn't blame him." Everyone left. The time had come. On the 5th, Lord Lovat
gave a speech in English to all the British people,
wishing them good luck and so on. He ended this speech by saying in French:
"Messieurs les Français, demain les Boches, on les aura." So we boarded the trucks
around 4-5PM. We reached the landing barges
on the 5th. And there we waited until around 10:30
in the evening, when we got a message from Churchill
and the King of England saying, "Good luck and may God protect you." We then set course for France. On the night of June 5-6,
Allied bombers pounded the Normandy coast. Thousands of paratroopers were dropped inland
to destroy bridges and capture strategic routes. At sea, the immense armada
made headway. The weather was fine. The sea was rough. At around 5AM,
we were woken by the words: "Get ready". Everyone checked their weapons and grenades,
everything was well loaded, and so on. They handed out a tin
of self-heating soup. I didn't like the soup. It tasted bitter. They said it was turtle soup. Turtle or no turtle, I didn't drink it. I threw it in the water. This turtle soup may have been
a celery-based broth, like the one distributed here
to American soldiers. The Allied fleet
was soon spotted. Around midnight,
on the German side, the general alarm is sounded. Guns were firing. Offshore, we began to receive
the first shells from the German artillery, of course,
firing on this armada. Well, it wasn't falling far from the shore. Then we hit the beach. On the beach,
there were 2 French boats, the A523 and the A527. They are LCAs, Landing Craft Infantry. The 527
took a shell in the bow. All the officers were wounded. I was on the A523. Lofi, whom I'd known for a long time,
said to me, "Follow me everywhere, I'll need you." So we disembarked
and ran down the beach. 3 Frenchmen were
killed on the beach. The others ran towards
the barbed-wire-strewn dunes. There, a new enemy
awaited them: mines. I can tell you there were mines. We passed over 60 mines
with full knowledge of the facts, and not one of them exploded. So the British said,
"It's a miracle". I solved the miracle. When there was a storm here,
the mines were rendered ineffective by the sand that had piled up on them. So, we arrived and took
that blockhouse up there. You know, the Germans are a bit panicked,
they see the grenades coming through the loopholes. We went on ahead. We dropped our bags
in an old summer camp up there, because the bags were very heavy. We reloaded the ammunition magazines,
had a quick snack and headed back inland. Towards the town of Ouistreham. To get there,
there were a few dirt tracks and countless dunes in which the Germans
had positioned their artillery. We had very strict orders from
Alexandre Lofi, who lectured us before we left. You know, we've got dunes like that, guys. So when you dive into a dune,
I don't want to see you come out in the same place again. You crawl 2m to the right or 2m
to the left, because when you come out of the dune, we'll be waiting for you. The French and British commandos lose men,
but make good progress to the heart of the German position. By 9:30AM,
the casino battle station had been silenced. 2 hours later,
almost the entire seaside resort was under Allied control. By the evening of June 6,
the Kieffer commando had achieved most of its objectives. The toll was heavy. Of the 177 French volunteers,
the Normandy beaches claimed the lives of 10 men
and wounded 36 others. This trip to hell
left its mark on Léon Gautier's life. So did the aftermath,
as the liberation and the return to civilian life plunged him
into another battle. A fight he hadn't expected,
against oblivion. Was it difficult to return to civilian life? Very, very hard. The Free French weren't just the commandos,
but all the Free French weren't very well received in France. And for good reason. Too English for the Free French,
too Free French for the Navy, Léon Gautier and his fellow members
of the Kieffer commando didn't fit into any of the boxes. Besides, who were these sailors
fighting on land? De Gaulle ignored them. The French Army
of the time avoided them. The officers, the people
with high-level connections, they were taken care of from
a governmental point of view and so on,
but all the men like me who were part of the troops,
they weren't taken care of. When I got back to France,
we couldn't find a place to stay and I was discharged from the French Navy. With exemplary conduct,
but still dismissed from the Navy. Those who were able to re-enlist
were insulted. When the officers
sat down at a table in the mess, the others left and went to another table. When recognition arrived,
spectacularly, in the early 2000s, some 50 former members
of the Kieffer commando died without even a Legion of Honor. You see, after the war,
I didn't feel like a man who had done something extraordinary. For me, no, I did
my duty and that was that. But today, I realize
that we did do something. Life had its way... We were among those 177,
that's a striking fact. We didn't do more than the veterans,
but it's a milestone that represented France too. You see, it represented France. And so, the little
we're proud of is having saved France's honor on June 6.