French WWII Normandy landings hero dies aged 106
Hubert Faure, one of the last surviving members of a French commando team which took part in the 1944 Normandy landings, has died aged 106, with President Emmanuel Macron leading the tributes on Saturday.
Macron expressed “the gratitude of the nation” and sent his condolences to Faure’s family in a statement, saying the former navy commando provided “a wonderful lesson in commitment and heroism”.
Faure was one of 177 Frenchled commandos who landed on the Normandy beaches on “DDay” on June 6, 1944 in the first wave of Allied landings in Nazioccupied France, the largest seaborne invasion in history.
As part of the “Keiffer Commandos”, named after the unit’s head Lieutenant Philippe Kieffer one of the first French fighters to join Charles de Gaulle’s Free France resistance movement, Faure landed on the beach at Colleville in northern France.
The only French soldiers to be involved in the D-Day landings, they achieved their objective of securing German fortifications at Ouistreham before joining up with Allied forces to drive on further.