"L.M. 8046": An Intimate Story of the Foreign Legion

by David Wooster King

Overview

Still a student at Harvard when World War I broke out, American David Wooster King joined the 135th Regiment of the French Foreign Legion in November 1914 and fought in the 1915 Champagne offensive and at Verdun and the Somme in 1916. He transferred to the American Army near the end of the war and served in the counterespionage section at Chaumont.

“This book of David King’s is not a sermon. It does not preach and it carries no moral. It says in fact: ‘Here, my good friends who made me into a beautiful hero, is what happened to me while I was gaining that title. Take it or leave it and be damned to you or have a drink with me or do whatever you please, but for Heaven’s sake don’t kiss me for I am splashed with the blood of my dead comrades and I am dirty with the grime of a million miles of road.’”—Hendrik Van Loon

A colourful and engrossing account, especially for 1915-1916.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787209299
Publisher:	Eschenburg Press
Publication date:	01/12/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	117
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

DAVID WOOSTER KING (1883-1975), a native of Providence, Rhode Island, was a student at Harvard University from 1912-1914 when he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in August 1914 and, later the French Army. He served with the 170th Regiment and, after being wounded, was transferred the 81st Heavy Artillery. When America entered WWI in 1917, he was released from the French Army and commissioned a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in November 1917.

King saw action at Verdun, the Somme, Champagne, and, although he was shot and twice buried alive, he survived all four years of the war, earning him the Croix de Guerre from the French government. After the war, he travelled through Afghanistan in a Buick and worked as a jute merchant in India. He also wrote a book about his experiences in the Legion and the French Army, “L.M.8046”: An Intimate Story of the French Foreign Legion, published in 1927.

He had a daughter, Louise Wooster King (1937-2016), who was an accomplished artist, writer, philanthropist and longtime patron of the arts.

He died in 1975.