CHURCHILL'S LEGIONNAIRE EDMUND MURRAY

Dedicated to 'that great family of merry, mean yet magnificent mercenaries, the men of the French Foreign Legion', Edmund Murray was chosen in 1950 to protect Sir Winston Churchill MP, then Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. 'I was to remain with Sir Winston as his constant companion for the next 15 years, accompanying him wherever he went on land, on sea and in the air... I was just outside his bedroom when he died on 24th January 1965, leaving behind an emptiness that will never be filled.' Having written his autobiography in 1987, he decided to give much more detail about his life in the French Foreign Legion to which he signed up at aged just 19 in 1937 armed with little more than schoolboy French and a desire for a life of adventure. Murray travelled through France and on to the Legion's headquarters in Algeria where he completed a gruelling three month basic training programme. He went on to serve in Morocco and Indochina (now Vietnam) where, towards the end of the War, his regiment were forced to retreat from invading Japanese forces into China where his service ended after eight years as a Legionnaire. Throughout WW2, Murray's overwhelming sense of duty compelled him to try to leave the Legion and join the Allied forces, but he was thwarted at every attempt. He was an Englishman in a French organisation, by definition a home for 'the men with no names', where battle lines and countries' boundaries changed almost daily. He was a diplomatic puzzle, but as such his was an extraordinary wartime experience, and this book which borrows from his earlier autobiography and includes rare insights into Legion life from drills and manoeuvres to feast-days and festivals as well as accounts of friendships forged in exceptional circumstances which would last a lifetime. 151pp, colour photos, badges and decorations.