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World War II veteran Harold Terens with his fiancée Jeanne Swerlin in Florida
Photo: Wilfredo Lee / AP
Harold Terens and his fiancée Jeanne Swerlin want to get married in June.
The senior couple from the USA plans to tie the knot in a special place: Normandy.
Where the Allied soldiers landed 80 years earlier on D-Day.
Terens, now 100 years old, served as a soldier for the USA in World War II.
The veteran will be honored in June as part of the 80th anniversary celebrations of D-Day.
During the trip he wants to marry his fiancée in a town near the beaches.
Terens reported for military service in 1942 and was transferred to Great Britain the following year, where he worked as a radio technician.
On D-Day - June 6, 1944 - he helped repair aircraft returning from France so they could return to combat.
Twelve days later, Terens himself went to France and helped transport German prisoners and newly freed American prisoners of war back to England.
His fiancée Swerlin, four years his junior, was in the United States during the war.
She attended high school and dated soldiers who gave her war souvenirs like dog tags, knives and even a rifle to impress her.
Today they laugh about how differently they experienced the Second World War.
Both grew up in New York City: she in Brooklyn, he in the Bronx.
They now live in Florida.
Terens and Swerlin are both widowed and have been together since 2021.
The couple will travel to Paris at the end of May, where Terens and other World War II veterans will be honored.
Of the 16 million U.S. soldiers from World War II, only 120,000 remain, according to government figures.
It will be Terens' fourth D-Day celebration in France.
Five years ago he received a medal from President Emmanuel Macron.
The senior couple's families will then travel to the town of Carentan-les-Marais, where Terens and Swerlin are to be married by the mayor on June 8 in a 16th-century chapel.
kfr/AP