Susan Travers Susan Travers ( 23 September 1909 – 18 December 2003 ) was an Englishwoman who was the only woman to serve officially with the French Foreign Legion . Early life . Travers was born in London and spent her early years in England , the daughter of Francis Eaton Travers a Royal Navy admiral and his wife Eleanor Catherine ( née Turnbull ) , until they moved to Caennes in the south of France . Never able to feel truly at home anywhere , Ms Travers had a lonely home life , feeling as though she lived in a gilded cage ( privileged but trapped ) , with her unhappily married parents and brother . She became what we would now call a semi - professional tennis player & whilst she did not earn from her playing , was invited to play at tournaments with all expenses covered . Her wealthy , free - spirtied maiden aunt , Hilda , who had lost her love in WWI & of whom she was very fond , provided her with a monthly allowance at first , facilitating her independence from her ever - distant & disapproving parents . Early war . At the outbreak of the Second World War , Travers joined the French Red Cross as a nurse , but later became an ambulance driver with the French Expeditionary Force to Finland ' s Winter War . With the German invasion of Denmark and Norway , she retreated from Denmark to Finland . She then escaped by ship to Iceland and returned from there to England where she joined General Charles de Gaulle ' s Free French forces . By 1941 , she was the chauffeur for a medical officer of the 13th Demi - Brigade of the French Foreign Legion , during the Syrian campaign in which Vichy French legionnaires fought Free French legionnaires . She was nicknamed " la Miss " by the legionnaires . She then travelled to North Africa via Dahomey and the Congo . During that journey , she had a brief affair with Georgian nobleman and Foreign Legion officer Dimitri Amilakhvari . She was then assigned as driver to Colonel Marie - Pierre Koenig and also became his lover . Bir Hakeim . In late May 1942 , as the Afrika Korps prepared to attack Bir Hakeim , Koenig ordered Travers and other women out of the area . The Germans attacked on 26 May . Not long after , Travers joined a convoy into the rear area and Koenig agreed to her requests to return to Bir Hakeim , since he felt the German attack was a failure . However , during the following fortnight , the Luftwaffe flew 1 , 400 sorties against the defences of Bir Hakeim , whilst four German / Italian divisions attacked on the ground . On 10 June , Travers drove Koenig ' s staff car during the retreat . The column ran into minefields and German machine gun fire . Koenig ordered Travers to drive at the front of the column . Travers stated : He said , " We have to get in front . If we go the rest will follow . " It is a delightful feeling , going as fast as you can in the dark . My main concern was that the engine would stall . At 10 : 30 on 11 June , the column entered British lines . Travers ' vehicle had been hit by eleven bullets , with a shock absorber destroyed and the brakes unserviceable . Her affair with Koenig ended after this battle , when he returned to his wife . The rest of the Second World War . Travers went on to serve in Italy , France , and Germany , where she respectively drove an ambulance , lorry , and a self - propelled anti - tank gun . Later in the war , she was wounded when Koenig drove over a mine whilst revisiting Bir Hakeim in a vehicle in which she was a passenger . Post - war . After the war she applied to and was formally enrolled in the Légion Étrangère , as an Adjutant - Chef . Travers served in Vietnam , during the First Indochina War . She married Adjutant - Chef Nicolas Schlegelmilch , who had fought at Bir Hakeim with the 13th Demi - Brigade . They had two sons . In retirement , they lived on the outskirts of Paris . In 2000 , aged 91 , assisted by Wendy Holden , she wrote her autobiography , " Tomorrow to Be Brave : A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion " , having waited for all the other principals in her life story to die before writing it . Travers was decorated with the Légion d ' honneur , Croix de Guerre and Médaille Militaire . Susan Travers died at the age of 94 . She was survived by two sons , Francois and Thomas , and grandchildren , including two granddaughters , Adela and Eleanor .