Paris: In a story that shatters all records of eternal romance, 100-year-old World War II veteran Harold Terens finally lived his dream and tied the knot with his 96-year-old fiancee Jeanne Swerlin on Saturday at the D-Day beaches in Normandy, after the 80th anniversary of the invasion by Allied forces that changed the course of the war against Nazi Germany. It may not be the wedding of the century, but it marks an almost double-century celebration, something that is rarely witnessed in any corner of the world.
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. It was a hub of remembrance and celebration on the 80th anniversary for the deeds and sacrifices of young men and women on that day, bestowed with flags and veterans feted like rockstars.
Well-wishers were already lined up a good hour before the wedding, behind barriers outside the town hall. After both declaring “oui” to vows read by a deputy mayor, the couple waved to the adoring crowds outside, flutes of champagne in hand. A 73-year-old Jane Ollier was among the early-bird spectators who waited for a glimpse of the happy couple, dressed in a 1940s dress that belonged to her mother.
'Best day of my life'
However, the wedding was merely symbolic and not binding in law, as Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur’s office said he wasn’t empowered to wed foreigners who weren’t residents of Carentan, and that the couple, who are both American, hadn’t requested legally binding vows. However, Terens called it "the best day of my life" as he finally tied the knot with Swerlin.
Terens was honoured at the D-Day commemorations, having enlisted in the US Army in 1942 and going to Great Britain in the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. Terens said his original pilots all died in the war. “I loved all those guys. Young men. The average age was 26,” he said.
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 brutalised by their Nazi captors for months and even years.
He then went on a secret mission — even though 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. Terens' job in the covert mission was to get the crews fed and the injured treated as American bombers flew from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe.
Following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Terens again helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England before he shipped back to the US a month later. He married his wife Thelma in 1948 and they had two daughters and a son. He became a US vice president for a British conglomerate. They moved from New York to Florida in 2006 after Thelma retired as a French teacher; she died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage. He has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
How the eternal romance began?
On the other side, Swerlin married at 21 and was a full-time mom to two girls and a boy before being widowed in her 40s. Her second husband died after 18 years of marriage. She then lived with Sol Katz for 25 years before his death in 2019. She has seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. It was Katz’s daughter, Joanne Schosheim, who introduced her to Terens in 2021.
She met Terens when her children attended camp with his grandchildren years ago and remained friends. She and a friend thought the two might hit it off, so invited them to lunch. “She gave my dad such joy,” Schosheim said of Swerlin. “I didn’t want her to be lonely.” But after Thelma’s death, Terens wasn’t interested in other women and barely noticed Swerlin. “I didn’t even look at her. I didn’t even talk to her,” he said.
The couple finally went on a date in 2021, after which Swerlin said Terens "did not give her a chance" to turn him down and fell in love at the age of 94. “He was introducing me to the whole world, ‘I want you to meet my girl, my sweetheart,’ and I didn’t even know him more than two days... Being in love is not just for the young. We get butterflies just like everybody else," she said. Terens proposed some months ago, kneeling to give Swerlin a ring.
“I love this girl — she is quite special,” said Terens as they sang and kissed like high-school sweethearts in March. "And my god, he’s the greatest kisser,” Swerlin said. It was Terens’ fourth D-Day celebration in France. He received a medal from President Emmanuel Macron five years ago.
(with inputs from AP)
