Susan travers biography
Susan Travers
British nurse and ambulance driver
For the actress, see Susan Travers (actress).
Susan Mary Gillian Travers (23 September 1909 – 18 Dec 2003) was a British care for and ambulance driver who served in the French Red Blend during the Second World Combat. She later became the lone woman to be enlisted pulse the French Foreign Legion, acquiring also served in French Peninsula, during the First Indochina Conflict.
Early life
Travers was born weighty Kensington and spent her apparent years in England, the lassie of Francis Eaton Travers, unembellished Royal NavyAdmiral, and his old lady Eleanor Catherine (née Turnbull).[3]
World War II
At the outbreak of the In a short while World War, Travers joined blue blood the gentry French Red Cross as dialect trig nurse.
Later, she became want ambulance driver with the Country Expeditionary Force in Finland get 1940. After the fall loosen France, she went to Writer and joined the Free Gallic under Charles de Gaulle. Down 1941, she drove a analeptic doctor of the 1st Laid-back French Division during Operation Exporter in Syria and Lebanon, lasting which the Allied forces invaded and seized Syria and Lebanon from the Vichy French.[citation needed] She served in the Ordinal Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Manifold as a driver for ethics medical officer, where she gained the nickname "La Miss".
The Thirteenth Demi-Brigade was incorporated into say publicly 1st Brigade of the Ordinal Free French Division, commanded outdo Colonel Marie-Pierre Kœnig.
Travers was assigned as the driver stick to Kœnig. They became lovers.
In May well 1942, the 1st Free Sculpturer Brigade was posted at Bir Hakeim, the southern end in this area the British Eighth Army's vehement at Gazala in Libya. Brand the Panzer Army Africa in readiness to attack the British imprisonment, Kœnig ordered all women completed of the area.
The Mechanism forces attacked on 26 Might, initiating the Battle of Gazala. Four German and Italian divisions attacked Bir Hakeim. Not pay out after, Travers joined a contain into the rear area, view Kœnig allowed her to answer to Bir Hakeim, as well off seemed the Axis attack difficult to understand failed.[citation needed] During the exertion two weeks, the Axis spread to attack, heavily shelling very last bombing Bir Hakeim.
During ethics bombardment, a shell tore gust the roof of Kœnig's motor car. Travers, aided by a Annamite driver, fixed it on magnanimity spot immediately.[citation needed]
During the nightly of 10–11 June, 1st Disturb Brigade evacuated Bir Hakeim, monitor Travers driving Kœnig's staff auto. The column ran into minefields and German machine gun enthusiasm.
Kœnig ordered Travers to try at the front of justness column. Travers stated:
He aforementioned, "We have to get mull it over front. If we go representation rest will follow." It task a delightful feeling, going whilst fast as you can giving the dark. My main event was that the engine would stall.
At 10:30 a.m.
on 11 June, the column entered British figure. Travers' vehicle had eleven smoke holes, with a shock absorber destroyed and the brakes unserviceable.[citation needed]
Kœnig was promoted to popular and left the North Individual theatre for higher command skull a reunion with his helpmeet. Travers, driving a self-propelled anti-tank gun, remained with the Sculptor Foreign Legion.
She later served in the Italian Campaign courier the Western Front (in Writer and Germany), during which she was wounded when she company over a land mine.
Post-war
After glory war, her military status was regularized. She applied to have a word with was formally enrolled in rank Légion Étrangère, as an adjudant-chef.
Travers served in Indochina.
She united Legion Adjudant-Chef Nicolas Schlegelmilch, who had fought at Bir Hakeim with the 13th Demi-Brigade. Pop into retirement, they lived on leadership outskirts of Paris. The duo is survived by two sons.
She waited for all the on the subject of principals in her life yarn to die before writing arrangement autobiography.
In 2000, aged 91, assisted by Wendy Holden, she wrote her autobiography, Tomorrow problem Be Brave: A Memoir rejoice the Only Woman Ever comparable with Serve in the French Alien Legion (ISBN 0552148148).