BOCA RATON – Americans Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin promise their courtship is “better than Romeo and Juliet” – he is 100, she’s 96, and they marry next month in France, where the groom-to-be served during World War II.
US Air Force veteran Terens will be honored on June 6 at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the historic Allied operation that changed the course of the war.
Two days later Harold and Jeanne will exchange vows in Carentan-les-Marais, close to the beaches where thousands of soldiers waded ashore – and many died – that day in 1944. The town’s mayor will preside over the ceremony.
“It’s a love story like you’ve never heard before,” Terens assures Agence France-Presse.
During an interview at Swerlin’s home in Boca Raton, Florida, they exchange glances, hold hands and smooch like teenagers.
“He’s an unbelievable guy, I love everything about him,” Swerlin says of her fiance. “He’s handsome –and he’s a good kisser.”
The youthful centenarian is also cheerful, witty, and gifted with a prodigious and vivid memory, recalling dates and locations and events without hesitation – a living history book of sorts.
Shortly after Terens turned 18, Japan bombed the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor. He, like many young American men, was keen to enlist.
By age 20 he was an expert in Morse code and aboard a ship bound for England, where he was assigned to a squadron of four P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. Terens was responsible for their ground-to-air communication.
“We were losing the war by losing a lot of planes and a lot of pilots... These pilots became friends and they got killed,” he laments. “They were all young kids.”
His company lost half of its 60 planes during the Normandy operation. Soon after, Terens volunteered to travel to that region of northern France to help transport German prisoners of war and liberated Allied troops to England.
After the war he returned stateside and married Thelma, his wife of 70 years with whom he raised three children.
Terens worked for a British multinational, and when he and Thelma retired, they settled in Florida.
Her death in 2018 sank Terens, and he endured “three years of feeling sorry for myself and mourning my wife,” he recalls.
But life offered him a fresh start. In 2021, a friend introduced him to Jeanne Swerlin, a charismatic woman who had also been widowed.
Sparks did not fly. On their first meeting Terens could barely look at Swerlin.
But persistence paid off. A second date changed everything, and they haven’t been apart since.
“She lights up my life, she makes everything beautiful,” he says. “She makes life worth living.”