A lady of aristocratic British society, the daughter of an admiral you see, was destined to crumple when war came, leaving a legacy of one of those stories of bravery that only armed conflict can shape.
So when the Germans besieged an allied stronghold in Libya, as part of its campaign "Desert Fox" in North Africa, Susan Travers refused to leave the base with the other women.
She was also the only female member of the French Foreign Legion and would sit there, receiving German bombs, for 15 whole days.
When supplies and food were saved, the daughter of the British admiral and mistress of the French general and commander of the force there, Marie-Pierre Koenig, realized that reinforcements would not come, and so it was in her own hands to save the besieged.
He was also the driver of the Foreign Legion and took the helm jeep in that heroic exit. With her good friend telling her "if we do not stop, the others will follow", she became the leader of the suicidal phalanx and managed to escape to the desert in the thunder of the enemy cannons.
Her own vehicle would eat 11 bullets and missiles, but there, non-stop. Until he arrived with the other 2.500 soldiers in the British army and they were saved. And this would be nothing but an incident in the life of a real fighter, who would continue the war driving a "self-propelled anti-tank weapon" and would later become an official member of the Foreign Legion, hiding her gender from the application!
Highly acclaimed with the highest honors of the French army, she was a woman who was not intimidated by the war. When asked about the daring escape, she said dryly: "My big concern was that the machine would betray us. What a wonderful feeling it was to run as fast as you could in the dark! ”…
When she closed her eyes in Paris at the age of 94 (2003), everyone remembered her for the trick she did and officially became the only ever woman of the Foreign Legion. In other words, she fooled the glorious volunteer body by hiding from the application that she was a woman.
British-born Susan Mary Gillian Travers was born in London in 1909 to the daughter of Francis Eaton Travers, Admiral of the Royal Navy, who had married his wife solely for her money (the daughter said in a later interview). .
Growing up in the comforts and depths that her high society liked so much Britain, was raised with rigor and discipline by her father. That's why she used to spend long periods in Cornwall, next to her aristocratic grandmother who never hurt her. In other words, nothing foretold the savagery that would take place when the war that they called World War II broke out.
When she came to consider the Foreign Legion as her only real family, playing a key role in one of the courageous escapes of war, the infamous siege of Erwin Rommel in Bir Haim Fortress in 1942.
When the war came and found her in 1939, Travers had been living in the South of France for several years. Her father was in charge of Allied forces in World War I. and camped in Marseille (where his own father was the British consul), deciding in 1921 to move his whole family there.
The French Riviera was just beginning to become popular in the British aristocracy and Susan was having a great time there as a young secularist. She played tennis all day and, as she later wrote, spent a "useless decade" as a member of her class, traveling all over Europe and having fun that was not for ordinary mortals.
Clearly changed when the hostilities began, her first job was to join the Red Cross as a nurse. Despite the fact that until then she lived as a lady of high society, she felt the call, as she said.
However, it became clear from the beginning that it was not cut and sewn for a nurse. After all, he was afraid of blood and diseases. And so he said to help become an ambulance driver. And it was done. And she was so good that she was immediately sent by the French expedition to help the Finns in the Winter War with the Soviets in 1940…
France, meanwhile, fell into the hands of the Axis as it watched daily war in Scandinavia. And so he returned to London and left voluntarily to join his Free French Forces General de Gaulle. She was placed in a division of the Foreign Legion and before she knew it she was in West Africa, where she lived through the failed attack in Dakar.
He was then stationed in Eritrea, as a guide for high-ranking French officials. The place was dangerous, as the desert roads were magically filled with enemy mines and ambushes. But she survived and had several stories to tell, with chases and even being injured by a missile.
The other Legionnaires called her "Miss" and accepted her as equal among them, as she accepted and honored the legendary iron discipline of the Legion. And she became best friends with most of them, including Comrade Pierre Mesmer, then Prime Minister of France.
And of course as a living woman who enjoyed life, she also had several love affairs to show off. As with the Russian prince and lieutenant colonel Dimitri Amilakhvari, commander of de Gaulle's Free French Forces division. Although the love that would change everything would come in June 1941, when he was placed as the guide of Colonel Marie-Pierre Koenig, the commander of the Foreign Legion!
Although he was married, the attraction was lightning fast. He used to give her a rose every day (and secretly) when she was being treated for jaundice. And as they could not express their love in public, they broke it for a while, spending a few months of love in Beirut, where he asked the high-ranking official to be placed… hastily.
Only the idyllic moments in the middle of the war would soon end, when the Foreign Legion joined the 8th Army and in the spring of 1942 were sent to defend Bir Hakim from Rommel's advance. It was the southernmost part of the allied defense line on the Western Front, a key stronghold that should not have fallen to the enemy.
Despite the fact that the British general Claude Auchinleck managed with his 8th Army to end the siege of Tobruk and repel Rommel to El-Angela at the end of 1941, regaining the Cyrenaica, the beginning of the new year found Rommel in a new raid.
His goal was to occupy the Ghazala - Bir Hakim line (May 26 - June 10) and then Tobruk (June 21), the fall of which was considered a national catastrophe in London. So at the beginning of May, the Axis forces (Germans and Italians), hearing Rommel say that it would take only 15 minutes to bend any allied resistance, launch a counterattack.
The 8th hoped that Bir Hakim would last a little longer, in a few weeks. They were all denied. Under Koenig's solid command, the 1st Free French Brigade of 1.000 Legionnaires and another 1.500 Allied troops managed to keep it alive for 15 whole days.
Forcing Churchill to call the Free French "Fighting French" and Hitler to declare them as the second best soldiers of the war, after the Germans!
A symbol of resistance to the Nazis but also a landmark of hope for the overthrow of the climate, Bir Hakim could no longer bear it. Without food, ammunition and water, Koenig decided to go out heroically at night, through the minefields and the three successive lines of the German Panzers that had surrounded the fort.
Travers's job is crucial in all of this, as she would be the driver of the commander and his deputy (and her ex-partner, Amilakhvari!). The exit was made, but he was betrayed when a truck fell asleep. The tanks started firing, but Travers boarded the throttle and did not look back, as it was decided that the exit had to continue at all costs.
They passed through the German lines, with her opening the way and the rest of the phalanx following. Despite the fact that the jeep had been fired at with bullets, it managed to reach the British forces.
Of Beer Hakim's 3.700 troops, more than 2.400 escaped with her. The 650 Legionnaires who survived also became symbols, Koenig's lover a national hero of the French and she was awarded the best that the French army had to award, such as the War Cross…
With Koenig's career and reputation at an all-time high, the military's first step was to end their illicit affair with Travers and return to his wife, which plunged her into grief. However, she gathered her pieces and followed the Foreign Legion in allied operations in Italy, France and Germany until the last second of the war.
As a driver and nurse now, both of her services were rendered valuable at the front. By May 1945 "I had become the man I always wanted to be." And since he wanted to be exactly this man, he applied immediately after the end of the war to officially become a member of the Foreign Legion. Of course, she made sure to forget to write in the application that she was a woman, and so she was accepted. She was placed in the Supply Corps and thus became the only woman who ever served in the legendary Legion.
And she continued to see war of course, as she was now sent to Vietnam to fight in the First Indochina War in 1945. Two years later she resigned to raise the two children she had from a soldier in the Legion, whom she had met in Tunisia in 1945.
However, Nicholas Schlegelmilch contracted a tropical disease in 1949 and after spending 18 months in hospital, he was released, although he would never be the same person again. However, they remained together until his death in 1995. She always lived in France, on the outskirts of Paris, and people remembered her every time the French Army decided to re-award her for her role in Bir Hakim.
The medal that was given to her in 1956 was pinned on her uniform by Koenig himself, her ex-lover who was now Minister of Defense of France. Forty years later, in 1996, he was honored with the highest distinction of France, the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 2000 she wrote her memoirs, when all those who would tell her story in her book died.
He passed away in December 2003, leaving behind two sons and one of the most heroic exits of World War II.
