40th anniversary of the Loyada Rescue Mission

In February 1976 legionnaires of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) and the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13e DBLE) were involved in the rescue of 31 children in Loayada, a village on the border between today’s Djibouti and Somalia. The children were kidnapped in Djibouti, capital of the then French Territory of Afars and Issas (TFAI, formerly French Somaliland, today’s Djibouti), by four rebels from the Somali Coast Liberation Front (Front de Libération de la Côte des Somalis, FLCS), a pan-Somali guerrilla organization created in the 1960s and supported by the Somali government.

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13e DBLE: History of the Legion’s only Demi-brigade

See the history and images of the French Foreign Legion’s only Demi-brigade (Half-brigade), 13e DBLE. This famous, well-known unit of the Legion was established in 1940 in Algeria, to participate in the WWII. Later that year, it became the first ever unit of the Free French Forces (FFL) of general de Gaulle. In 2011, as the last unit of the Legion, the Demi-brigade left Africa.

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Rare Foreign Legion’s photos from the 1980s & Gulf War

Chad, Djibouti, Mayotte and the Gulf War… See the interesting slideshows created by Ch. R., a former legionnaire and NCO of the French Foreign Legion, who served in the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) during the 1980s and 1990s. Hundreds of rare, cool photos from places known by almost all legionnaires and from the Gulf War 1990-91.

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