Colin Gee - Opening Moves

With immense determination, and not a little luck, he reached British lines and had his wounds tended. His arrival preceded yet another Stuka attack and in the subsequent German infantry assault, he was pressed into action alongside the men of a famous Scottish infantry regiment as he could still hold a rifle.

On one occasion, he personally rallied a group of six men and counter-attacked, retaking a machine-gun that was brought back into play with great effect. Two hours of sustained fighting saw him wounded once more, so he was packed off with some retreating medic’s and successfully evacuated across the channel to fight another day with De Gaulle’s Free French. The British officer commanding the jocks found time to record Lavalle’s actions on that day and so he found himself invested with the Military Cross by his allies. Not to be outdone, his own superiors honoured him with the Croix de Guerre.

It was at this time that he was given a transfer into the newly formed 13th Demi-Brigade, Légion Étrangère and, despite a negative start, he never looked back, leading his troops through many bloody campaigns.

Still recovering from his wounds, he developed a severe chest infection and so was considered unfit for full duty, missing the excursion of 13th D.B.L.E. into the Arctic waters around Norway. On the Legion’s return, he heard tell of the fighting qualities of the German paratroopers and mountain troops before the collapse of resistance elsewhere in Norway had forced the Legion to escape back to England.

In December 1940, 13th DBLE arrived in the French Cameroons, and then moved onto East Africa to assist the British at the battles of Keren and especially Massawa.

It was perhaps one of the war’s most tragic episodes that the Legion brigade to which Lavalle belonged was pitted against the Vichy 6th REI in the Syrian hills at Damas. Here, legionnaire killed legionnaire in extremely fierce fighting, despite many men knowing each other as former comrades and friends. 13th DBLE triumphed and at the end of the campaign many former 6th REI members volunteered to form a third battalion in Lavalle’s unit.

For his valour in this awful action, Lavalle received the Croix de Guerre’s Silver Star citation

In May 1942, Capitaine Lavalle led his legionnaires in defence of Bir Hakeim in the western desert, resisting the advances of the Italian Armoured Division “Ariete” and winning the Medaille Militaire for his leadership and personal tally of four Italian M13/40 tanks. All four vehicles were stopped just in front of his command bunker with a Boyes anti-tank rifle taken from a dead legionnaire.

Supporting RAF bombers mistakenly attacked the wrecked Italian vehicles on May 29th, thinking they were in fact live, and Lavalle was wounded in the head by a bomb fragment. He was unable to be evacuated because of the siege nature of the battle and, despite medical protestations, he continued to lead his unit in fierce fighting, particularly against the 90th Leichte Afrika Division. Lavalle finally withdrew his unit in good order on the 11th June, along with the rest of the Brigade. It was generally accepted that the defence of Bir Hakeim enabled the later successes, starting at El Alamein.

Lavalle excelled in combat, both personally and in a command role, and was considered a natural leader; a man who would be followed anywhere by the professionals he led. This was recognised by his superiors and a further step up the Croix de Guerre ladder came with the award of the Bronze Palm and he was promoted to the rank of Commandant. His promotion was welcomed by every man who served under him, for fighting soldiers like to be led by competent men.

Combat continued into Italy as part of the US 5th Army, with a sobering stint in the attacks east of Monte Cassino in support of 3rd Algerian Division. A bloody but necessary attack on an MG42 position nearly proved his end when his uniform became riddled with bullets, all but two of them missing him completely. The sole strikes hit his left hand, carrying away two fingers and, once again, his head, knocking a lump out just above his desert wound and plunging him into instant unconsciousness.

He was stretchered off the battlefield and began four months of recuperation, receiving the silver-gilt palms to his Croix de Guerre from his own General and the Silver Star from the US Army Commander whilst still immobilised in his hospital bed. This battle, more than any other, scarred Lavalle, for far too many of his old comrades would remain forever in the soil of Italy and most of them died on those fateful days in late January 1944, when the mountain troops of the Wehrmacht demonstrated just how tough they could be, and that they were no respecters of reputations, not even the Legion’s. Lavalle had fought many enemies but none was as tough as the 5th Gebirgsjager Division those few bloody days in Italy.

As part of the 1st Free French Division, he took his Battalion ashore, landing in Southern France with Operation Anvil in August 1944. Lavalle managed to duck his next promotion for as long as possible but the new rank caught up with him when he was wounded again after the campaign moved into the assault on Germany proper, where his battalion was one of the few to see serious action.

During the Battle of Colmar he was shot during a ferocious fire fight with the Waffen-SS, this time a rifle bullet in the thigh, and the powers that be swiftly took the opportunity offered. He was permanently transferred from his beloved legion regiment and, after recuperation, received his Colonelcy and was required to serve as a staff officer in the headquarters of the First French Army. On his first day of full duty, he was paraded before an immaculate honour guard of his former legion battalion to receive his Knight’s rank Legion D’Honneur. Truly, he had become one of France’s most decorated combat soldiers.

As with all things he undertook, Lavalle did his best in the staff job but it was not what he had joined soldiering for, and so he had additional reason to be pleased when the German surrender came. At the cessation of hostilities, he was stationed in the Stuttgart area and immediately the soldier’s talk was of Indo-China and use of the Legion there. So, expectantly, he applied for command of a unit destined to be sent there but was refused.

He was instead swiftly transferred to a special and decidedly clandestine French intelligence group based in Ettlingen and given a briefing by no lesser person than the Army Commander himself. The new group’s task was to trawl through the German POW’s, rooting out those whose excesses made them too hot to handle, but offering more soldiering to those felt acceptable and suitable. Any appropriate German who considered a French Foreign Legion uniform and a communist guerrilla bullet were preferable to languishing in the hellholes set aside for them would be invited to join the Légion Étrangère and be spirited away to North Africa for training. The others would continue to languish in the Rheinweisenlager or similar hellholes, until the Allies decided what to do with the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners in their hands.

Far from being boring and routine, Lavalle found it enthralling work and put his all into ensuring France could rely on his selection of legionnaires for Indo-China.

The interrogation of one former Hauptmann of the Gebirgsjager had proved enlightening, as he had been part of the bloodbath in Italy that had left such a mark on Christophe. There was no animosity, just professional courtesy and mutual respect, and once the German realised that he was facing one of the legionnaires who had spent their blood so profusely in that struggle, he opened up much more. The handshake at the end was firm and sincere, and Hauptmann Renke went off to do his bit for the Republic.