by TERRY SPENCER, Associated PressWorld War II veteran Harold Terens, 100, right, and Jeanne Swerlin, 96, share a laugh as they speak during an interview, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Boca Raton, Fla. Terens will be honored by France as part of the country's 80th anniversary celebration of D-Day. In addition, the couple will be married on June 8 at a chapel near the beaches where U.S. forces landed. e World War II veteran first visited as a 20-year-old U.S.
The couple, who are each widowed, grew up in New York City: her in Brooklyn, him in the Bronx. They laugh at how differently they experienced World War II. She was in high school and dated soldiers who gave her war souvenirs like dog tags, knives and even a gun, trying to impress. He learned the details of his covert mission when he was deposited at a Soviet airfield in Ukraine. As part of a new strategy, American bombers would fly from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe. They didn’t have enough fuel to return so they would fly to the USSR. Terens' job was to get the crews fed and the injured treated before they flew their refueled planes home.
He married his wife Thelma in 1948 and they had two daughters and a son. He became a U.S. vice president for a British conglomerate. They moved from New York to Florida in 2006 after Thelma retired as a French teacher; she died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage. He has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
“I said, ‘You’re in love,’” Eisenberg said. “He said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had these feelings before.'"