New Britain herald., 1929-11-22
FOREIGN LEGION
 POLICING DESERT D9taChInentS Sent Out to Keep
 MoorS Quiet in Winter
By RALPH HEINZEN

United Press Staff Correspondent | Sidi-B Bel-Abbe?, Alger.a Nov. 22 sBy maiD-Planes back from the | highlands of the Atlas bring the 1 news that trouble is brewing. Moun- | tain pasturagcs have been burned to | 3 crisp by the sun and the flocks 1 have gone down into the valleys again, leaving the mountain Moors, | how relieved of their tedious tasks pf Shepherding, free to band for their diversion of guerilla fighting. Here in dusty, baked Sidi-bel-Ab- bes the sun beaten Legion of the Damned drills it's khalli-clad thous- hnds in anticipation of hard win ter. Small detaChmcnts have al ready gone to ungodly holes in the mountains and the desert. Where Turing the terrific heat of a sum- mGts sun DO white man could live Only in the winter can these out posts of the Legion be manned. The ambush of Colomb- -Buchar, only a few weeks back, was d pre- Jude. a curtain raiser to many months of wicked fighting with an unseen foe. Seldom does news of these battles, poorly matched for the Legion, leak back into more civ flized places, but from day to day fhe Legion lives it's pcrilous eXis- fence 10 keep the French hold on Moorish Africa safe.
 It takes a really serious ambush in which at least 50 men are sacr- Heed before the Legion breaks into print, unless some disgTuntled vol hnteer deserts and gets back to his | home town to spread tales of ter Tor of tribulation.
 Summer No Sinccure
 There is plenty of work for the Region this winter. The summer was no sinccure. In binding heat and clouds of alkaH dust stirred up by the feet of the men or their eamcls or horses, the Legion man 7, Deuyered to stavc off attack or break np formations wherever planes re- ported an unusual number of Moors Dr Arabs gathered.
 > The mountain Moors wage a con- stant holy war against the whites. The Legion is not a combat unit NOA OlLt4loN. IL I9 d pau Hit lily oL uefenders, happy to fight at the drop of hat, but always waiting for the enemy to drop the hat first.
 Nothing is here in this arid cor her of Africa but dust and dry rock. , Under the summer sun the rocks are slzzl-ng hot and the sands blistering. she Legion suffers thirst and hunger ind the men know the levers and the Wandering mind that only the desert E tun can produce, but, to the glory bf the Legion, it holds on by it's nails to the desert so dearly bought. It is tradition that the Legion , sas horny feet. The Legionaircs heed them, for when a column mar shes out under the orders from Fl Bordj, Ait Yakoub, Boujad or Talg- hemt, it is always forced march. Twenty miles a day over sand and Iocks, without a road or landmark Is guide no trees to shade swell .cring humans in the brief rest per . sods, and a waiting enemy behind many rocks.
 Place of SiGi- bcI-ADhcs
 Sidi-bcl- Abbes is the kindcrgar- len and stamping grounds of the , Legion, an army post as We once knew them in our own western frontiers Here the Legion has it's home, it's headquarters and there the .ccruits come in mystery to bury a o9st which may or may not have been sinful and to sign away all free 3um for seven years.
 Back to tiny Sidi comes the Ls- jon on league. In her olr,y c.-.v.i he sunbaled men find their pleas hres. In the streets of S.di move aordes of -sashcd Legionaires, . Whose faces tell the story of their suffering. There are square jawcd Russians and Poles, blonde shaved ieaded Germans tiny Syrians and ,- twarthy Spaniards and Italians; Frenchmen whose fine fingers and slean shaven faces hint at tragedies If love; Englshmen who are daring Ind joined the Legion to fight
 The Legion is q meltnGpot of ighting men. and yet they are not luerulous. Every man in the Io- .iOn fights the battles of others and . ny Lcgionairc would pay the su- 5rcmc sacrifice for his fellows. There k no other such band of fearless hard- hearted men, tlint-cycd and nuare iaWed ambassadors of steel