The Foreign Legion and the Fourth Liberty Loan – Pictures!

Here are some more wonderful pictures of that small detachment of about 122 French Foreign Legionnaires (including 12 officers) who traveled to the U.S. in the fall of 1918 to participate in rallies for the Fourth Liberty Loan.   These men, most of whom had also been wounded, were all highly decorated veterans of the trenches.  60 some members of the Legion would travel on the following Liberty Loan Tour itinerary.  Another detachment of around 50 Legionnaires were divided into smaller teams and attached to war-exhibit trains that displayed captured German military equipment throughout the country.

Washington, D. C., September 23
Cleveland. Ohio, September 24
Chicago, Illinois, September 25
St. Louis, Missouri, September 26
Kansas City, Missouri, September 27
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, September 28
Dallas, Texas, September 29 and 30
Houston, Texas., October 01
New Orleans, Louisiana, October 02
Birmingham, Alabama, October 03
Memphis, Tennessee, October 04
Louisville, Kentucky, October 05 and 06
Indianapolis, Indiana, October 07
Cincinnati, Ohio, October 08
Columbus, Ohio, October 09
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 10
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, October 11
New York City, New York, October 12 and 13
Boston, Massachusetts, October 14 and 15
Hartford, Connecticut, October 16
Newark, New Jersey, October 17
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, October 18
Baltimore, Maryland, October 19

I’ve made several posts about this event over the years and always suspected that there must have been hundreds and hundreds of photographs taken of the Legion detachment simply because of the large number of events held in so many different locations.  All of these were undoubtedly well covered by the press.  Until now, I only found several high resolution pictures at the Library of Congress and nothing much else other than some grainy and faded photos found in newspaper scans.  These new pictures were found using the search page for the National Archives website.  (More specifically they are part of the National Archives at College Park.)   These particular photographs mainly come from events in Louisiana, D. C. and Harrisburg, PA associated with the Liberty Loan Tour.  One picture shows some captured German equipment that was likely from one of the trains.

I had to reformat these in order to blow up the picture while also retaining the press data typed on the form.  These are big files but you can download all 22 pictures at this link.  (I also found a Youtube video of the D.C. Event.)