London:

Britain’s Royal Air Force has grounded a fleet of World War II Spitfire planes following the death of a pilot in a weekend crash, officials said Monday.

The announcement raises questions about the legendary single-seat fighter aircraft’s participation in events to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings next month.

Pilot Mark Long was killed when flying a Spitfire belonging to a Battle of Britain memorial fleet crashed near the RAF Coningsby base in Lincolnshire, eastern England, on Saturday. 

“Following the tragic accident at RAF Coningsby, and while the formal investigation is ongoing, the RAF has instigated a temporary pause in flying for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight,” a RAF spokesperson said.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) is a collection of wartime fighter and bomber aircraft that take part in air shows and memorial displays.

A few dozen airworthy Spitfires remain, including six based at RAF Coningsby.

They were due to take part in a national commemorative event in Portsmouth on June 5 to mark 80 years since Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France, turning the tide of World War II away from Nazi Germany.

It is not known when the RAF’s investigation will be complete or when a decision will be made on whether the vintage planes will fly again.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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 AFP.

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.

– Secret mission –

One day Terens received an envelope with instructions not to open it until he reached a certain destination. Thus began a remarkable journey that took him to Soviet Ukraine via Casablanca, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Cairo, Baghdad and Tehran.

When he finally arrived in Poltava, a city east of Kyiv, a Russian officer informed him he was part of a secret mission. US B-17 aircraft were taking off from England bound for Romania, where they would bomb Axis oil fields controlled by Nazi Germany.

Terens was part of the resupply team in Ukraine that provided the Flying Fortresses with fuel and ordnance.

The operation lasted 24 hours until the Germans discovered the Allied base in Ukraine and attacked it.

Terens says he escaped but was left in no-man’s land. He contracted dysentery, and only survived thanks to the help of a local farming family.

Returning to England, he cheated death once more. When a pub proprietor refused to serve him a drink because she was about to close, he shrugged and left. He had barely walked two blocks when a German rocket destroyed the establishment.

‘Luckiest guy in the world’

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.”

Terens, wearing a World War II cap with “100 Year Old Vet” embroidered on the side, is over the moon about returning to France, where President Emmanuel Macron bestowed on him the nation’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor, in 2019.

He is also thrilled, of course, about getting married. Surrounded by family and friends, December lovebirds Jeanne and Harold will say “I do” at a ceremony in which a Terens’ granddaughter will sing “I Will Always Love You” as a great-grand-daughter scatters flower petals on the ground.

At 100, this decorated military veteran acknowledges his good fortune.

“I got it all,” he says. “I’m probably the luckiest guy in the world.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday denounced a “volcano of anti-Semitism” and international criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, insisting that no pressure would stop it from defending itself.

“If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” Netanyahu said.

Speaking at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, he lamented that when the Nazis killed six million Jews during World War II, his people “were totally defenceless against those who sought our destruction.

“No nation came to our aid,” he said as the Israeli flag billowed at half mast and survivors of the Holocaust prepared to light torches.

“Today, we again confront enemies bent on our destruction,” Netanyahu told the large crowd gathered for the ceremony. 

One yellow chair sat empty representing the hostages still held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

“I say to the leaders of the world, no amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum, will stop Israel from defending itself.”

He lamented the surge of criticism seen around the world against Israel over its war in Gaza, ignited after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack. And he denounced “this terrible volcano of anti-Semitism” that he said was surging around the world.

Netanyahu also compared the protests seen at universities across the United States and around the world to the discrimination against Jews at German universities during World War II.

“What a distortion of justice and history,” he said.

The criticism, he said, was not “due to the actions that we do, but because we exist… because we are Jews.

“You will not chain our hands… Israel will continue to fight human evil… until victory,” he said.

“We will defeat our genocidal enemies. Never again is now!”

Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Hamas also seized some 250 hostages during the attack. Israel estimates 128 are still held captive in Gaza, including 35 the army says are dead.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologises for the events surrounding Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s visit at a media availability in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised Wednesday, September 27, 2023, for Parliament’s recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis during last week’s address by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr. Trudeau said the speaker of the House of Commons, who resigned Tuesday, was “solely responsible” for the invitation and recognition of the man but said it was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada.

“All of us who were in the House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped, even though we did so unaware of the context,” Mr. Trudeau said before he entering the House of Commons. “It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, and was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people.”

Mr. Trudeau repeated the apology in Parliament.

Just after Mr. Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicise the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

“It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicised by Russia, and its supporters, to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for,” Mr. Trudeau said.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week that the standing ovation for Hunka was “outrageous,” and he called it the result of a “sloppy attitude” toward remembering the Nazi regime. Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Speaker of the House Anthony Rota stepped down on Tuesday, September 26, after meeting with the House of Commons’ party leaders, and after all of the main opposition parties called on him to resign.

House government leader Karina Gould said that Mr. Rota invited and recognszed Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine, and that his lack of due diligence had broken the trust of lawmakers.

In an earlier apology on Sunday, Mr. Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognising Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speaker’s office said it was Hunka’s son who contacted NMr. Rota’s local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyy’s speech.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies has called the incident “a stain on our country’s venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.” (