PHOTOS: Foum El Hassan Post in Morocco in the early 1940s

A new part of the PHOTOS series. See a rare set of pictures showing the Foum El Hassan Post, home of the former Automobile Mounted Company, 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment (CMA/4e REI) in southern Morocco in the early 1940s. No other similar set showing the Foum El Hassan Post’s interior is publicly known.

The post of Foum El Hassan had a square plan with a side length of about 150 yards/meters. It was built in 1934, by CMA men under Captain Louis Gaultier (the future head of the Foreign Legion). They were reinforced by a Foreign Legion battalion and Moroccan auxiliaries. The post was located some 110 miles (180 km) south of Agadir, a popular seaside resort on Morocco’s Atlantic coast and a garrison town of the Legion of that time. It became one of the southernmost Foreign Legion military posts in North Africa, and the southernmost in Morocco. It was named “Le Moal Post,” in honor of Captain Le Moal, commander of the company who died in 1932 or 1933 while saving his men from a collapsed blockhouse.

The CMA/4e REI was a former mule-mounted company, one of the oldest among the famous mounted companies of the Legion. The company was motorized in 1933 and equipped with various cars and trucks, including Panhard armored cars. In the 1930s, it comprised around 250 legionnaires divided into six platoons. (Note that an ordinary infantry company had four platoons with 150 men at the time.) In late 1940, following the Armistice signed with Germany, the French Army – including the Legion – was reduced. Thus, the 4e REI was deactivated, and the CMA was transferred to the 2e REI. It became its 12th Motorized Mixed Company (12e CMP). This is most likely when the rare pictures were taken.

The company remained at its post until 1950. During that period, it became part of the 3e REI and later part of the GPLEM.

As a matter of interest, a British legionnaire, Sergeant Charles Millasin, served with the company at the Le Moal Post in the early 1940s.