World War II Vet, 100, Marries Fiancée, 96, in France amid D-Day 80th Anniversary: ‘Beside Myself with Joy’

A 100-year-old World War II veteran has married his fiancée amid the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

On Saturday, June 8, Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin said “I do” in Carentan-les-Marais in Normandy, where Allied troops invaded 80 years ago and changed the course of the Second World War.

“I am beside myself with joy,” Terens tells PEOPLE ahead of his wedding day. “The mayor is marrying us.”

“My granddaughter is going to sing ‘I Will Always Love You,’ a Whitney Houston classic, as my great-granddaughter walks down the aisle as flower girl and her daughter walks arm in arm with her,” he continues, referencing members of his and Swerlin’s blended family.

“And my son is going to walk me down the aisle,” adds Swerlin. 

Originally from the Bronx, New York, Terens enlisted in the Army Air Forces 82 years ago.

“I was 18 years old,” he recalls. “I was in the schoolyard with my friends playing basketball, and we heard Pearl Harbor was bombed. We were all patriotic guys and we tried to enlist. My parents wouldn’t sign for me because I was a little underage. But the day after Thanksgiving 1942, I finally went into the service.”

Terens first went to Miami Beach for basic training, and then to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he spent five months learning about radios and ground-to-air 522 superheterodyne receivers.

He eventually became a Morse code operator, and Terens was later shipped to England, where he joined the 350th Fighter Squadron.

Terens remembers what he was doing on D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Allied troops invaded Normandy.

“I was talking to all the pilots,” Terens says. “Every one of our pilots went into battle. They all went over Normandy. I was painting white stripes on the planes that remained. We had three separate missions back and forth, and we lost half of our planes and half of our pilots that day. It was one of the saddest days ever in my first 20 years of life. Most of the pilots were my friends. The average age was 26. We were all kids. It was sad.”

Twelve days after the landings, Terens himself was sent to Normandy. “I brought back some American fliers that were released prisoners of war from German stalags,” he says. “A bunch of emaciated pilots, bombardiers, navigators, gunners, all in very, very bad condition.” 

“I did that about six times — [also] bringing back Germans who were taken prisoner in Normandy, and some British soldiers as well,” he continues. “It was a disgusting war. Normandy was just a horror to look at. I still have nightmares about the war.”

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Terens admits that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever return to the U.S. alive during his military service. “I never thought I would ever see my mother, father, sister or brother again,” he says. “I was going to get killed. This is how you feel when you are a kid, about 20 years old, and you are a soldier, and there’s a war on. What the hell? I was going to get killed anyway.”

After he returned to America following his service, Terens married his first wife, Thelma, in 1948. Their marriage lasted 70 years until her death in 2018. Together they had three children.

In 2021, Terens met Swerlin through Joanne Schosheim, the daughter of Swerlin’s late romantic partner, Sol Katz. Before her relationship with Katz, Swerlin was widowed twice with three children. 

“[Joanne] wanted me to meet someone, because she said I made her dad so happy,” Swerlin, who was about 16 years old when D-Day happened, teIIs PEOPLE. “I lived with him for a while and he passed away. That’s when she said, ‘Why should you be alone when you made my dad so happy?’ ” 

“At the luncheon for our blind date,” she continues, “Harold didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him. His friend said, ‘Are you going to see this girl again?’ Harold said, ‘I don’t know.’ The friend said, ‘Well, let’s go for dinner. I’d like to meet the woman you’re going to dismiss.’ ”

“We went and sat in a restaurant and my knee touched her knee, and I exploded,” Terens recalls of their time together. “I couldn’t eat anymore. Something happened inside of me. I guess I was falling in love with her that very moment.”

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He adds, “From that moment on, it hasn’t diminished one drop. I still feel the same three years ago. I feel the same today as I did then.”

Terens eventually proposed to Swerlin in the unlikeliest of romantic places: a garage. 

“I couldn’t wait to get her into the house,” Terens says. “I got on my knee and I got my white trousers all dirty. But I got down there and I said, ‘Let’s get married.’ She said, ‘Sure.’ Just like that. But when I got in the house, I brought her a wedding ring because I didn’t want her to get away.”

Through the combined efforts of Delta Air Lines, the Best Defense Foundation and Michelin North America, Terens and Swerlin were flown to France courtesy of Delta for both the wedding and D-Day 80th anniversary celebrations.

The move continues Delta’s tradition of transporting surviving American World War II vets to France to commemorate the historic invasion. 

After their wedding, Terens and Swerlin, who collectively have 15 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren together, will spend their honeymoon in Paris.

“This man is so unique in every way. He’s smart. He could be President of the United States at 100. I mean, he’s so funny. I made him laugh for the first time in his life. He never laughed like ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ And I did it to him,” Swerlin says.