BOCA RATON, United States (AFP)

— 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.

United States Air Force veteran Terens will be honored on 6 June 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.