With the outbreak of World War I, whilst thousands of men were
being swallowed up in the patriotic surge of volunteering for the
Army, large numbers of physically fit men were being rejected out
of hand. These were those who were less than the mandatory height
for acceptance, five feet three inches. Six young men from very
different walks of life found that when they tried to volunteer,
they were summarily rejected because they were not tall enough. All
this would change in December, 1914 when "Bantam" units were raised
in order to tap this otherwise wasted source of manpower. These six
men who enlisted at the same time and recruiting office made a pact
that if they could manage to do so, they would stay together as a
group whilst they were in the Army. The narrative sees them through
their training in the Yorkshire Dales and on Salisbury Plain thence
to France in the winter of 1916 where they are introduced to the
hardships of trench warfare in the flooded battlefields of French
Flanders. Ultimately, they move to the Somme where their luck runs
out. Having recovered from their wounds, two of the survivors take
part in the mining operations at Messines Ridge, before moving on
to Passchendaele and all its horrors. One of them is shipped back
to England after more wounding. As a result of his experiences
catching up with him, he will not return to active service in
France. This story is based on facts, the service history of the
author's father.
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