FRENCH PARATROOPER UNITS

TRADITION
Parade of the Hand

Once a year the tradition-minded ForeIgn Legion removes a 100 plus year old hallowed object from its place of honor in the Legion's museum and takes it on parade.

The object is a hand.

Carried in an ornate glass box by a veteran white-kepied Legionnaire, it is marched through the streets each April 30, leading the First Regiment in a ceremony honoring the BATTLE OF CAMERONE.

It was in that tiny Mexican village over a hundred years ago that the owner of the hand lost his life, and seventy-two Legionnaires were almost annihilated, giving the Legion a story to live by in the process.

The anniversary of Camerone has become the Legion's greatest holiday, a three-day mardi-gras in its headquarters. It is a one-day celebration in every Legion outpost, and a day when at least one ceremony will be performed in even the smallest, most battle-weary Legion unit.

For on April 30 the commanding officer of every unit reads the grim story of the Battle of Camerone to his men, even if he must move from foxhole to foxhole to see that it is done.

In what is apparently the best tradition of the Legion, from Mexico to Dien Bien Phu, Camerone was a losing battle. The company involved was led by a Captain Danjou. Although he had lost a hand in the Crimea with a Legion unit a decade before the Battle of Cameron, the captain was still serving on active duty.

His missing hand had been replaced with a wooden one, and it is the wooden limb which, with three legionnaires, was all that survived the Camerone battle. The men of Captain Danjou had insisted on fighting to the death.

This is the story that is drilled into every Legionnaire and formally read once a year, with the idea that the tradition of Camerone should be upheld -- the Legion's reputation of not surrendering.

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Les Paras á Numéa

Links to French Foreign Legion Web Sites

Embassy of France: French Foreign Legion Paras

13th Demi Brigade, Legion Estrangere; The Legion in Texas?

Naval Infantry

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FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION IN INDOCHINA

THE LEGIONNAIRES AT DIEN BIEN PHU

The 13th Half-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion was surrounded by attacking Viet Minh as the battle of Dien-Bien-Phu raged into its final hours.

When it became clear that the fall of this indefensible position was imminent, a group of survivors of the bitter Indo-China fighting gathered at the brigade's underground headquarters

There they cut the brigade's green and red regimental flag into almost thirty pieces, dividing the weather-beaten bits of felt among them, secure that the Legion's colors would not be captured.

Today in the museum at Sidi Bel Abbes, eight of the bits of felt have been placed beneath a glass frame, like a jig saw puzzle with two-thirds of the pieces missing. Legionnaires say all the pieces will come back to Sidi Bel Abbes some day. (from the Baltimore Sunpapers, December, 1955)

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THE VIET MINH AT DIEN BIEN PHU

My maternal grandfather was a member of the Vietminh, and was a participant in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. He was but a patriot who left behind a young wife and three children-the youngest but an infant, to fight the invaders.

Later on he and many of his compatriots were purged by the Communists because they did not support or embrace the Marxist-Leninist diatribes the commies were spouting. He didn't fight to get rid of the foreign oppressors so that he would behold another. But I digress.

I know that the French forces fought against a numerically superior force. However, the Vietminh manhandled artillery pieces and eveything else through sheer human labor. The assault forces weren't even properly armed and supplied. They lived with handfuls of rice and fought with handful of bullets. For many Vietminhs, they were armed with sharpened bamboo stakes and farming implements. They fought against great odds and died by the numbers, driven forward by hatred of the colonials and desperation for freedom. My grandfather claimed that he personally killed a French soldier with his empty M1 carbine and fixed bayonet. He also claimed that he killed dog of a traitor Indochine soldier. I can't substantiate his claims, but the look of rage in his eyes even in today whenever he talked about the war tells me that the man was speaking the truth. The Vietnamese people don't take kindly to foreign oppressors.

We have died by the millions, fighting against technologically superior foes just for the simple belief of freedom. I have no love for the Communists. One of these days, I shall return to the land of my birth and kill my own countrymen or be killed by them also just for a simple cause. If I can't, then my sons shall carry on the fight. Well, who says life is easy.

Airborne All The Way.

Sincerely, Hung Tran Dang

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French Foreign Legion Song"

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