Legion calling…
70 years ago today: 5 Septembre 1953 – Indochine Française. Radioman 1er bataillon du 3e Régiment Etranger d’Infanterie (1/3e REI).
Photo by Pierre Ferrari/ECPAD/Défense TONK 53-84 R3
Note the M1 Thompson submachine gun in the center of the photo and a MAS 36 on the ground to the left. Also, drink in the Mle. 47/49 bush caps– “Le Chapeau de Brousse“– and a “canne du poilus,” a staple of French soldiers going back to 1914.
Formed 11 November 1915 to serve in the Great War from the shattered remnants of other Foreign Legion units, the 3e REI earned its kepis under the command of the famed Lt. Col. Paul-Frédéric Rollet, “the father of the Legion” at the siege of de Belly-en-Santerr, the Somme, Verdun, and in piercing the Hindenburg Line. Following inter-war service in Africa and combat against the Germans in 1940 and 1943-45, the regiment embarked for Indochina in 1946 and served through Dien Bien Phu, losing 3,837 Legionnaires in Southeast Asia. Notably, its Indochina-era march, “Anne-Marie du 3e REI” has its lyrics in German, a clear reference to the old “Devil’s Guard” days when much of the Legion were former Wermacht and even Waffen SS troopers.
Following combat in Algeria, the regiment moved to Madagascar in 1962 when that country became independent and then, in 1973, back to the jungles when it shifted garrison to Kourou in French Guiana where it still exists today as a battalion-sized light infantry force guarding France’s space center and operating the French Army jungle warfare school.
The more things change…
