The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment was a Foreign Legion regiment created in 1948 and dissolved in 1961 following the generals' putsch.
Creation and different denominations
July 1, 1948:creation of the 1er BEP.
December 31, 1950:dissolution.
March 18, 1951:new creation of the BEP.
September 1, 1955:the unit becomes the 1er REP.
April 30, 1961:definitive dissolution of the 1er REP.
History of garrisons, campaigns and battles
The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment was born on July 1, 1948 in Khamisis, near Sidi Bel Abbès, under the name of 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion.
Indochina War
He embarked on the Pasteur on October 24 at Mers el-Kébir and arrived in Indochina on November 12 at Hai Phòng. Throughout the Indochina War, the battalion will mainly intervene in Tonkin in northern Indochina.
He joined the parachute company of the 3e REI of Lieutenant Morin on June 1, 1949.
On September 17 and 18, 1950, the battalion jumped on That Khe, in order to join the group of units commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Lepage, which had left Lang Son to rescue the elements evacuated from Cao Bang (battle of RC4). It was almost completely destroyed during the fighting around Dong Khe and was dissolved on December 31. His losses were 21 officers, 46 non-commissioned officers and 420 legionnaires including the corps commander, the battalion commander Segrétain. Only a few elements manage to join the French lines, including Captain Jeanpierre, who will later be in Algeria, the corps commander of the 1st REP.
The 1st BEP was recreated on March 18, 1951 from the remainder of the original battalion, temporarily grouped into a marching company within the 2nd BEP, and reinforcements from the 2nd BEP and North Africa. The BEP then includes 3 companies (CCB, 1st and 2nd company) and a CIPLE (Indochinese paratrooper company of the Foreign Legion). A 3rd company will be formed in November 1952.
On September 1, 1953, the 1st Foreign Heavy Mortar Parachute Company (1st CEPML) was created from elements of the 1st and 2nd BEP. This unit is attached to the 1er BEP.
The 1er BEP will again be annihilated on May 7, 1954 during the battle of Diên Biên Phu:it will count 316 killed at the end of the fighting (not counting the prisoners who will not return from captivity).
He embarked in Saigon on the Pasteur on February 1, 1955 and disembarked at Mers el-Kébir on the 24th. On September 1, 1955, the 1er BEP became the 1er REP and set up in Zéralda.
On November 6, 1956, the regiment landed in Egypt at Port Said and Port Fouad as part of the Suez Canal crisis. It will be evacuated between December 10 and December 22, when the city is handed over to the United Nations.
War in Algeria
As early as 1957, the regiment was sent to Algeria first to Algiers, then in the djebel, then finally in Guelma.
Role in the Audin Affair
During the "Battle of Algiers", Maurice Audin, mathematician at the University of Algiers and member of the Algerian Communist Party, was arrested at his home on June 11, 1957, by Captain Devis, Lieutenant Philippe Erulin and several soldiers of the 1st REP, to be transferred to a destination where he is under house arrest. A mousetrap being installed in the apartment of the Audin family, Henri Alleg, former director of the newspaper Algiers Republican and author of The Question, was arrested there the next day. With the exception of the military, he is the last to have seen him alive. Trace of Maurice Audin is therefore lost for his wife Josette and their three children. According to the French army, Maurice Audin escaped by jumping from the jeep which was transferring him from his place of detention. But according to an investigation by historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet who wrote, in May 1958, in the first edition of The Audin Affair, that escape was impossible, Maurice Audin died during a torture session, murdered June 21, 1957 by a junior officer.
Participation in the Algiers putsch and dissolution
On May 29, 1958, during Operation Taureau in the Bou-Amhdad region, its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Paul Jeanpierre, was killed when his helicopter was shot down by the rebels. His successor, Colonel Brothier took over command on June 17, 1958 with the mission of securing Algeria.
On the eve of the Algiers putsch of April 1961, the regiment was commanded ad interim by Commander Hélie de Saint Marc, Lieutenant-Colonel Guiraud being on leave.
The commander of Saint-Marc committed the regiment to the side of the putschists, and it was he who kicked off the putsch on April 21, 1961, marching from Zéralda to Algiers. Following the failure of the putsch, the regiment was dissolved on April 30 at the request of Pierre Messmer, Minister of the Armed Forces. The legionnaires leave their camp in Zéralda singing Edith Piaf's song, No, I don't regret anything. In fact, some of the officers resigned and joined the OAS. Note the best known, Colonel Henri Dufour, who was the corps commander in 1959 and 1960, captains Sergent, Ponsolle and Philippe Le Pivain, lieutenants Degueldre, de la Bigne, Godot, Labriffe, sergeant Dovecar, the legionnaire Claude Tenne.
The officers who had not resigned were brought back to mainland France and detained at the Fort de Nogent in May and June 1961, where Lieutenant Henry Lobel recorded songs from the Foreign Legion, some of which had lyrics modified by the events experienced, in what would become a 33 rpm album “Songs of Honor and Loyalty”. This album will initially be published in 300 numbered copies and only intended for the legionnaires concerned. Then in 1970, a 33 rpm record was released by the Society for Studies and Public Relations, the publishing house of Jean-Marie Le Pen, former member of the regiment. In 2011, a box set for the 50th anniversary entitled "L'honneur d'un régiment" was produced5:it included a CD with all the remastered songs, a DVD, and a 64-page booklet "the illustrated souvenir album of the 1st REP .
This third dissolution will be the last and the regiment will never be recreated. As a result, the 2e REP is today the only foreign parachute regiment.
Parking
Guelma
Algiers
Zeralda
Traditions
Currency
Ride or die
Flag
The flag of the 1st REP was presented to Lieutenant-Colonel Brothier by Colonel Lborieux on June 4, 1956 in Zéralda.
The inscriptions in its folds are:
Camerone 1863
Indochina 1948-1954
Algeria 1952-1962
Decorations
The flag is decorated with the TOE War Cross with 5 palms, all obtained during the Indochina War. He also wears the fourragère in the colors of the military medal.
Leaders
1st BEP
1948 - 1950:Segrétain Battalion Commander*
1950 - 1950:Captain Raffalli
1950 - 1950:Captain Vieules
1951 - 1952:battalion commander Darmuzai
1952 - 1953:battalion commander Brothier
1953 - 1954:battalion commander Guiraud
1954 - 1954:Captain Chalony (acting)
1954 - 1954:Captain Denoix de Saint-Marc (acting)
1954 - 1954:Captain Germain
1954 - 1954:battalion commander Pierre Paul Jeanpierre
1st REP8
1955 - 1956:Major Jeanpierre
1956 - 1957:Lieutenant-Colonel Brothier
1957 - 1958:Lieutenant-Colonel Jeanpierre*
1958 - 1959:Colonel Brothier
1959 - 1960:Colonel Dufour
1960 - 1961:Lieutenant-Colonel Guiraud
Note (*):dead officer at the head of the unit
Personalities who served in the regiment
Hélie de Saint Marc (commander), former resistance fighter and writer.
Pierre Sergent (captain), former resistance fighter, OAS activist, writer and French politician.
Roger Degueldre (lieutenant), former resistance fighter and OAS activist, shot on July 6, 1962 .
Albert Dovecar (sergeant), OAS activist of Croatian origin, shot on June 7, 1962.
Pierre Jeanpierre (colonel), resistant and former regimental corps commander, he is one of the rare survivors of the RC4 tragedy. He was killed at the head of the 1er REP on May 29, 1958 in Algeria.
Roger Faulques, (lieutenant, commander of the Platoon of Graduate Students of the 1er BEP), mercenary in Africa after his career in Algeria.
Louis Stien, (lieutenant in the 1st BEP), former member of the resistance, author of the book "The Forgotten Soldiers", Raymond Poincaré prize 1993.
Jacques Peyrat ( lieutenant in the 1st BEP), French politician, mayor of Nice between 1995 and 2008.
Claude Tenne, legionnaire in the 1st REP, specialist in cleaning caves, participant in the putsch, joined the OAS, will be the only one to succeed in an escape from the penal colony of Ile de Ré on November 3, 1967.