Opening Moves

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.

Today would be different for Lavalle. He was venturing into almost exclusively SS territory, for they were the main occupants of the camp outside of Winzenheim. Of course, he had already met some of this particular breed, and found them to be at both ends of the scale. Rabid fanatics who still expected the Fuhrer to rise up and smite down the enemy, to those who were good soldiers who had given their all militarily and just wanted to go home.