The Only Woman In The French Foreign Legion

British tennis-playing socialite Susan Travers (23 September 1909–18 December 2003) became the only woman in the French Foreign Legion, leading a daring, wartime, desert escape.

Born in southern England as the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, but raised as a young tennis-playing socialite in the south of France, Travers was among thousands of women who joined the French Red Cross at the outbreak of the Second World War.

When France fell to the Nazis she made her way to London and signed up with General De Gaulle's Free French and was attached to the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Legion Etrangere, which sailed for Africa. Volunteering as a driver to the brigade's senior officers, she exhibited such nerves of steel in negotiating minefields and enemy attacks that she earned the affectionate nickname 'La Miss' from her thousand male comrades.

(via Look At This...)