80 years ago, in late September 1946, a story of one of the least-known units of the French Foreign Legion came to an end. When the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment (3e REI) was officially disbanded in 1943, its mounted and motorized companies were deliberately kept in service in Morocco, then part of French North Africa, so that the name of one of the French Army’s two most decorated regiments would not vanish entirely. Grouped together in 1944, they spent the rest of World War II and the immediate postwar years in almost complete isolation, far from the battlefields of Europe and Indochina, on the edge of the Sahara, understrength and equipped with outdated weapons.

Learn more about these largely forgotten units in our new article:
Mounted and Motorized Company Group, 3e REI

Le texte est également disponible en français :
Groupement des compagnies montées et portées du 3e REI