French Foreign Legion help needed

[sksvlad]

My great grandfather Moses Elbaum was in Legion Etranger during IWW. I'd like to find his service records, online. My searches for Legion's help lines or data banks lead me to nothing. Maybe because of my abilities or because of my location in USA. May someone help me get that information? All I have is a couple of photos of him in Paris.

 

[Dreamk]

My great grandfather Moses Elbaum was in Legion Etranger during IWW. I'd li

ke to find his service records, online. My searches for Legion's help lines or data banks lead me to nothing. Maybe because of my abilities or because of my location in USA. May someone help me get that information? All I have is a couple of photos of him in Paris.

The files of members of the French Foreign Legion have an unique situation among the files of French soldiers. Regular French military records from ww1 are online and easily accessed while for ww2 the records of fallen soldiers and free French forces are accessible online.
However for the French foreign Legion, the situation is different:
If the enlistment was after 1909 and the soldier was a foreigner the individual file is at the HQ of the Legion in Aubagne (not yet digitized as far as I know).
If the soldier was a French born citizen of a foreigner naturalized French before incorporation the file is at the SHD-Pau (Historical Service of the Defense Ministry in Pau)
If the soldier was a member of the Czech and Polish units incorporated into the French army in 1939-40 (not Legion but often confounded with it) same thing, the files are at SHD-Pau.

The best is to contact the following addresses:

1)For Foreign citizenship Legionnaires

COMMANDEMENT DE LA LEGION ETRANGERE
Bureau des Anciens de la Légion Etrangère (BALE)
Quartier Viénot - B.P. 21 355
13784 AUBAGNE CEDEX
Tél : 04.42.18.12.82

2) For French citizenship (original or by naturalization) legionnaire :

AD ou ANOM (if enlisted before end 1940) AD = Departmental Archives ohe department of residence of the soldier at the time of his enlistment

or C.A.P.M. (if enlisted after 1940)
Centre des Archives du Personnel Militaire
Caserne Bernadotte,
Place de Verdun
64 023 PAU Cedex
Mail : capm-pau.courrier.fct@intradef.gouv.fr
Tél : 05 59 40 46 92
Fax : 05 59 40 45 53


My advice is to begin by this last mail adress (CAPM) and send simultaneously a letter to the Bureau des anciens in Aubagne (they answer and are highly cooperative but are notoriously slow as I understand that this is operated by volunteers retired legionnaires)