Born into a modest family of Valence in the Drôme department where his father ran a machine shop, Fernand Courby experienced from childhood the taste to translate through drawing the expression of his thought.

After a stay at the Académie de France in Rome (Villa Medici), he joined the great archaeological sites of Delos and Delphi under the leadership of Maurice Holleaux.

Mobilized in 1914 and assigned in 1915 to the 176th Infantry Regiment, it was in the uniform of an adjutant (and under the Turkish balls) that he participated in the development of Macedonia excavations, especially the necropolis of Elaeusin in Thrace, unearthed during work entrenchment in the Dardanelles in early June 1915.

His role in the development of the victorious offensive which forced Bulgaria to ask for an armistice September 29, 1918 earned him the Greek Medal of Military Merit and the French Croix de Guerre with citation to the order of the Eastern Army.

[13][14] It was in Delos that Fernand Courby started his study on Les vases grecs à reliefs (from prehistoric to Roman times), which he made the subject of his doctoral thesis published in 1922.