[click on pic]
"They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz!"
Posted on 11/21/2019 6:54:31 AM PST by C19fan
The heroics of a pint-sized First World War captain who served in a special unit for short soldiers can finally be told after his war diary went up for sale - including how he repelled four German attacks.
Captain Angus McKenzie Forsyth was under 5ft 3ins, which was below the British Army's minimum height requirement.
But such was the necessity to recruit men to fight in the trenches, special 'Bantam' units were formed for vertically challenged Tommies
Men who measured between 4ft 10ins and 5ft 3ins were eligible.
Capt Forsyth volunteered as an inexperienced 20-year-old in September 1914, and joined the light infantry Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I am so impressed with this man and his ilk. Dear Lord, we could use even a soupcon of such courage and honor in our day.
Also I enjoyed seeing handwriting that’s at least as illegible as my own (in inkwell-dip pen cursive, mind you, and under less-than-ideal penmanship conditions) At least he had a good excuse.
Could have recruited on the set of the Wizard of Oz.
This was brought home for me when visiting Les Invalides, the French military museum (also where Napoleon’s and Marshall Foch’s crypts are at) several years ago.
I was looking at a French Old Guard Grenadier uniform on a mannequin. These guys were the premier heavy infantry of the European continent, the baddest of the bad.
I realized that I am considerably larger than the person who would have worn that uniform, or any of the uniforms there. Heck, my neighbor’s high school freshman (at the time) son was considerably larger. Now, he was on the HS football team, but still.
Modern nutrition matters.
We’re Off to Shoot the Germans, the Wonderful Krauts from Oz.
I have a shooting replica of a Brown Bess. I'm 5'11" and it feels excessively long for me, even more unwieldy with a bayonet. I can't imagine being 6-12" shorter and hauling that thing around, much less fighting with it.
bump
Fritz isn’t only merely dead,
He’s really most sincerely dead.
Imperial guard were big men for their time. The minimum height requirement was 5’10”; now about the average height of an American male.
Between 4’10” and 5’3”? So many possible jokes come to mind. Picture the Tommy’s in this unit singing “Hi Ho, Hi Ho” as they march. Didn’t have to dig the trenches quite as deep. The Germans they fought weren’t just merely dead. They were really most sincerely dead. Put them in WWII Japanese units and they’d line up just fine with the rest of the regiment. Moral: Never pick a fight with someone whose jab is at the same altitude as your tender bits.
"They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz!"
It is now being sold by his descendants at auction with his medals and mementos including his cigarette case.
That's sad, but perhaps the family wanted to be sure someone would take care of those mementos for many years to come.
A relative was KIA, and his distraught parents copied his letters home and shared them with family. But his writings were never to be shared with the public. Yet, many years later, long after his parents were gone, somehow his writings were released to the public. Who knows who did it. I just hope family (not someone else) made that decision.
I’m 5’7 taller than my mom who was 5’5. My dad was 5’6. Nothing wrong with being short.
Yes, the definition of a tall guy has changed through the ages.
So you're 11' tall? 8~)
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