LA MISS
A True Story,
This inspirational film celebrates the magnificent achievement of the Free French Brigade of 3700 men – and one Englishwoman, Susan Travers, the garrison commander’s driver affectionately known as La Miss. Susan and the comrades who came to respect her won glory for their bravery, outnumbered ten to one by Axis forces led by Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps of tanks and many thousands of troops at the isolated defensive outpost of Bir Hakeim in the Libyan Desert in May-June 1942.
Dismissed as ‘a huddle of vermin’ by Nazi high command, who expected this ‘nest of rodents’ to be swept aside ‘in fifteen minutes’ on their triumphant march towards Tobruk and ever greater glories, the Free French held their ground for fifteen days. Their tenacity and valour exasperated Rommel and infuriated Hitler. Called ‘devils not men’ by the enemy and ‘the Fighting French’ by the Allies, the holders of Bir Hakeim repelled continual attacks from all sides by vastly superior numbers. The incredible duration of their stand gave the Allies time to regroup further north, foiling the enemy’s future plans of conquest and ultimately turning the course of World War 2 permanently in the Allies’ favour.
Described by Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill as ‘One of the finest feats of arms in this war’, the action of the defenders of Bir Hakeim earned General de Gaulle’s maverick army of volunteers and troops from the French colonies, plus two battalions of Foreign Legionnaires, the admiration of the other Allies and caused the Free French to be regarded thereafter as equal participants in the war effort. And Susan Travers’s story is an integral part of it, as a woman whose real-life love for the general commanding the outpost was part of the force that drove her to astonishing feats of selfless bravery.
The action is based on real events and the people who took part, assembled from documentation in the public domain. No copyrights have been infringed.
- An initiative is currently in progress (summer 2024) to bring this tremendous story to the screen.
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