Léon Gautier has passed away at the age of 100.
On D-Day, Mr. Gautier and his comrades in the Kieffer Commando unit were among the first waves of Allied troops to storm the heavily defended beaches of occupied northern France, beginning the liberation of western Europe. In a huge invasion force made up largely of American, British and Canadian soldiers, Capt. Philippe Kieffer’s commandos ensured that France had feats to be proud of too, after the dishonor of its Nazi occupation, in which some chose to collaborate with Adolf Hitler’s forces.
“For us it was special,” Mr. Gautier recalled in the 2019 article. “We were happy to come home. We were at the head of the landing. The British let us go a few meters in front.” He added, “For us it was the liberation of France, the return into the family.”
The commandos came ashore on what was code-named Sword Beach, carrying four days’ worth of rations and ammunition. As they sprinted up the beach, they cut through barbed wire under a hail of bullets. They spent 78 days on the front lines, in ever-dwindling numbers. Of the 177 who had waded ashore, just two dozen escaped death or injury.
Mr. Gautier was the last survivor.
Mr. Gautier devoted much of his life after the war to giving interviews, taking part in commemorations and helping put together a museum in Ouistreham that commemorates the French commandos who helped liberate Normandy.
“He was a father to us, a grandfather to us, an important figure of daily life,” the mayor said. “He was the hero of 1944, the hero of June 6, but also the little old guy that everyone knew.”
Edward Fredkin, noted computer scientist.
Fueled by a seemingly limitless scientific imagination and a blithe indifference to conventional thinking, Professor Fredkin charged through an endlessly mutating career that could appear as mind-warping as the iconoclastic theories that made him a force in both computer science and physics.
“Ed Fredkin had more ideas per day than most people have in a month,” Gerald Sussman, a professor of electronic engineering and a longtime colleague at M.I.T., said in a phone interview. “Most of them were bad, and he would have agreed with me on that. But out of those, there were good ideas, too. So he had more good ideas in a lifetime than most people ever have.”
This hasn’t been well reported elsewhere, but Don Lancaster has passed away.
He was kind of an obscure figure to most people, but he was famous in a certain circle as a hardware hacker.
Tribute from Charles Petzold.
The older I get, the harder it is to remember just where I saw or read about something or someone. But I do have a pretty solid memory of Mr. Gautier and part of the story of his team leading the way onto Sword Beach. It might just have been in relation to some other story about the invasion and a short toss off about them being allowed to lead the way. But the name sticks out pretty solidly for some reason, in relation to the event.
So it is with a sense of thanks and gratitude that I bid him farewell and rest in peace.
Have a great weekend.