Note: This post links to two well researched articles written by an amateur historian who is the owner and administrator of a French Foreign Legion (FFL) website. As a member of the French Foreign Legion between November 1938 and November 1943, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, took dozens of ultrarare photos during his time stationed in Algeria. Using high-resolution images I shared with the amateur historian, he explains what they tell us about the FFL artillery battery unit my father was a member of while also relating some of the unit’s history.
Related Posts:
POST 26: “APATRIDE” (STATELESS)
POST 79: DR. OTTO BRUCK’S PATH TO THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION
POST 80: DR. OTTO BRUCK IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION
POST 81: PHOTO ESSAY OF DR. OTTO BRUCK’S TIME IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION
When I began my family history blog in 2017, I imagined my storytelling would largely follow a linear path. I assumed it would generally track an individual family member through the various phases of their lives from when they were young to their demise. This was never realistic as one simply does not learn about the lives of people in a linear fashion. Even with close members of my family, I’m continually uncovering new documents from unexpected places or learning more about them from people who knew them, even briefly. In the past year alone, I’ve surprisingly found new documents on both my father and aunt Suzanne Müller, née Bruck (1904-1942) from unexpected sources.
Apropos of the current publication, I wrote about my father’s time in the French Foreign Legion (Legion) in a sequence of three posts (Posts 79, 80, & 81) written in 2020. Those articles focused on what prompted my father to enlist in the Legion, where and when he joined up, what enabled his enlistment in this military corps of the French Army, where he was stationed, and more. I also discussed the geopolitical developments that permitted my father to travel from Algeria to France in 1941 across what I assumed were “enemy” lines to visit his beloved sister Suzanne, the last time he would ever see her. I also briefly touched on my father’s military deployments in Algeria relying on his service records obtained from the Legion. What I did not previously talk about was the artillery unit my father was a member of.
Thanks to the contributions and in-depth research of an amateur historian named “Peter” who stumbled on the blog posts and the accompanying photos about my father’s time in the Legion and recognized their significance, I now know more about his time in this famous military force and the artillery battery of which he was a member. Peter’s findings reinforce my belief that learning about one’s family can come in completely unexpected ways. Admittedly his discoveries reveal more about the history of the artillery unit than they do about my father, though in fact the two are intertwined. Because Peter’s articles will be of interest to only a small fraction of readers, I mostly defer to what he has written on the subject by linking at the bottom of this post to Peter’s two articles.
It is worth emphasizing, however, what I’ve realized for some time about my father’s photos. They occasionally offer a unique peek into some rarely documented places or events that permit fragmentary aspects of history to be better understood or inaccurate portrayals to be corrected. As Peter remarked in his initial email to me requesting permission to share some of my father’s rare photos, “I have been interested in the Legion for more than 20 years, I love Legion Saharan units, but I have never seen the BSPL [EDITOR’S NOTE: Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion, Foreign Legion Saharan Motorized Battery] barracks in Ouargla [EDITOR’S NOTE: the administrative center of the Oasis Territory, which comprised the eastern desert regions of French Algeria]. It is an extremely rare piece. I dare say that even the official Legion and their archive don’t have one. The same stands for a photo showing a Legion Saharan unit taking part in a parade prior to or during WWII (the oldest one I know/have seen is from 1945-46).”
With the above background, let me review some of what I know about my father’s service in the Legion and the organization over time of the Saharan artillery unit he served during his engagement. On the advice of one of his closest cousins living in Nice, France, after leaving Germany in 1938, my father traveled to Paris to enlist in the FFL. From France, he was transferred to Sidi Bel Abbès in northwestern Algeria, then the Legion’s main headquarters. Then in January 1939, my father was sent to Saïda for standard four-month basic training before being assigned in May 1939 to the so-called Batterie Saharienne Portée (BSP), Saharan Motorized Battery, in Ouargla. As mentioned above, Ouargla was the administrative center of the Oasis Territory, which comprised the eastern desert regions of French Algeria. (Figure 1) My father remained in Ouargla without interruption until the end of 1942.
My father’s military records show, however, that on October 1, 1939, he was reassigned to the then newly created Compagnie Automobile de Transport du Territoire des Oasis (C.A.T.T.O.), Oasis Territory Automobile Transport Company. This was a truck-equipped unit tasked with transportation duties across the Oasis Territory. As Peter notes in Part I of his two-part series, other than the date of its formation and its commander, Captain Ardassenoff, an officer of Russian origin, no other records or evidence about the C.A.T.T.O. survive. Followers can read Peter’s conjecture about the creation of the C.A.T.T.O.
By November 1940, the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (BSPL), the Foreign Legion Saharan Motorized Battery, had been established in Ouargla. The 1re BSPL, one of the Foreign Legion artillery batteries, was originally established as the Batterie Saharienne Portée (BSP), Saharan Motorized Battery, in Ouargla on July 1, 1938. At the time, it was part of the 1er Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie (1er REI), 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment. According to Peter, the BSP was the first Foreign Legion unit to officially bear the title “Saharan.” This unit was responsible for policing Algeria’s border with Libya, then occupied by Italy, an ally of Germany.
According to Peter, the establishment of the BSPL in November 1940 represented the formal separation of the BSP from the 1er REI (i.e., recall the BSP was originally part of the 1er REI). This date corresponds with when my father became a member of the newly created BSPL. This reorganization followed France’s defeat at the hands of Germany during the Battle of France in May-June 1940 when France was forced to sign an armistice with Nazi Germany. While Legion units in North Africa retained relative autonomy, German and Italian “commissions” regularly inspected French garrisons to ensure the armistice terms were adhered to.
This recalls something I discussed in Post 80 where I mentioned that the Legion command would send some of their units on assignment to remote areas in the Sahara whenever commission inspections were scheduled to protect their Jewish servicemen. To remind readers, while in the Legion my father was assigned an alias, Marcel Berger, though this would have been unlikely to protect him from a “vigorous” interrogation.
As Peter explains, in March 1941, the BSPL’s name was changed for administrative reasons to the 1re BSPL when a second Legion Saharan battery was created at the desert fortress of Fort Flatters.
Peter makes an astute observation about my father’s photographs, namely, that none of them show artillery pieces. This is striking since the unit my father was a member of was an artillery unit, suggesting that my father had been serving in the truck transport detachment since 1939. According to Peter, my father’s photographs confirm he remained in the transport detachment until the end of his service in the 1re BSPL.
Following the landing of the Allied forces in French Morocco and Algeria in November 1942, the Allies secured the allegiance of the French North African command and its armies. Then began in early 1943 the campaign aimed at liberating the third French North African territory, Tunisia, from the Germans and Italians. The only picture I have of my father holding a weapon during the Second World War is when the 1re BSPL participated as a support unit in the Tunisian campaign. (Figure 2)
My father left the Legion in November 1943 in favor of the British Pioneer Corps. As I’ve explained elsewhere, my father had hoped to get into Britain following the war to resume his dental career; for reasons that remain a mystery this never transpired, and my father only briefly ever again practiced dentistry before coming to America in 1948.
In any case, following the end of his service in the Legion there were a few weeks before my father joined the Pioneer Corps. In the interim, he was briefly assigned to the Groupement de travailleurs étrangers (GTE), Foreign Worker Group, in Colomb- Béchar, western Algeria. Despite his Jewish background and the fact that the Nazi government had revoked his nationality, making him “apatride,” French term for stateless, France still considered him a German national and thus a citizen of an enemy state. Suffice it to say, the Foreign Worker Groups employed foreign nationals in France who were not serving in military units to work on strategically important projects. Peter also notes the following: “For the record, legionnaires were often detached to GTE groups in North Africa as cadres.” In any case, my father was only released from the GTE to join the British Pioneer Corps in late November 1943.
In mid-1944 when my father was already in the British Army, he returned to Ouargla while on leave to visit friends. By then the 1re BSPL had been disbanded and the garrison was now home to the Compagnie Saharienne Portée de Légion (CSPL), the Saharan Motorized Company, later 1re CSPL; this was an automobile company of the same regiment (i.e., 1er REI) and the Legion’s second Saharan unit that had also been established in November 1940, responsible for the western Sahara. Interestingly, perhaps because of his enduring connection to the Sahara, Captain Ardassenoff commanded the CSPL.
Having provided more detail than I intended, I apologize to readers for whom this is overkill. The archaeologist in me compels me towards over explaining things. While I’ve gone into some detail above, readers can find even more information in Peter’s posts. Readers can also find my father’s pictures embedded in Peter’s two articles along with his captions describing what they’re looking at.
One final comment. I’m deeply indebted to Peter for his thoughtful and careful research and analysis of my father’s photos and the military unit he served in while in the Legion. I’m as grateful for Peter’s contribution as he is for having gained access to my father’s ultrarare FFL photographs. It fills a gap in my understanding of my father’s life during the five years he spent in the Legion in Algeria.
PART I:
PHOTOS: Foreign Legion Saharan Battery from 1939 to 1942
PART II:
PHOTOS: Foreign Legion Saharan Battery from 1939 to 1942 – II. Part