(Reuters) - When Leon Gautier landed on Sword Beach in a hail of enemy fire on June 6, 1944, as one of the first wave of French commandos to set foot on Normandy soil, the last thing he expected was that 70 years later one of the "Boches" he was fighting against would be a friend and neighbour.

Today, 91-year-old Gautier and his friend Johannes Boerner, 88, are two of the dwindling number of veterans of the Allied D-Day landings and the ensuing nearly three-month battle of attrition that began to push German forces back from the western front of Nazi-occupied Europe.