96-Year-Old 'D-Day Hero' Admits To Being A Fraud

A World War II veteran long-hailed as a D-Day hero has been exposed as a fraud, according to a French nonprofit, D-Day Overlord. George G. Klein, 96, was not among the soldiers fighting the Germans during the allied invasion of occupied Normandy, France, as he had once said. Klein, who lives in Glenview, Illinois, was in Ireland at the time.

Klein traveled to Normandy in June and participated in events that memorialized the battle that took place June 6, 1944. Marc Laurenceau, who runs D-Day Overlord, detailed the discovery Monday.

“[He] was one of the great celebrities of the 73rd anniversary of the landing of Normandy in June 2017 … signing hundreds of autographs and marking all those he met by his incredible kindness,” wrote Laurenceau.

Klein’s account of the battle said that he had scaled a tall cliff to engage with German soldiers before being wounded by a bayonet. He also claimed that he had to wait for two days before being evacuated. The Second Army Ranger Battalion, which Klein claimed to be a part of, took serious casualties during the battle. It started off with 225 Rangers and ended the battle with just 90. Klein’s name was never listed as a member of that Battalion, which he maintained was an error.

Klein was an Army Ranger but had broken his ankle during a climbing exercise in 1943, and the event had barred him from being in the more elite Second Army Ranger Battalion. Klein was also injured when his unit later came to France. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart medals by the U.S. and the prestigious Legion of Honor by France.

Volunteers with D-Day Overlord helped Klein come to France this summer, and the trip cost over $5,000 raised through crowdfunding, according to the New York Post Wednesday.

After returning from the trip, Klein confessed to his family that he wasn’t actually at the battle. Laurenceau said that Klein’s absence from the battle was discovered by two historians who then corroborated the fact with the remaining survivors of the battalion.

“I'm in contact with his family with whom I have become friends. They are devastated,” wrote Laurenceau. “So are we, as we believed his story. We put in a lot of effort to get him to Normandy.”

Klein isn't the first person to have exaggerated his service, Howard Manoian was another soldier who claimed to have been part of D-Day operations but was found to be lying in 2009.

Laurenceau said that Klein should be proud of his actual contribution.

“George Klein should not be ashamed of his real contribution to the liberation of Europe during the Second World War: deployed from July 26, 1944 to July 23, 1945 with the 46th Field Artillery Battalion, he was seriously wounded in combat in the Moselle region,” wrote Laurenceau.