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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Left handed soldiers?


DCLI

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In the summer of 2006 I took part as a volunteer in battle reenactments for the CBC documentary "The Great War". All the volunteers were decendents of Great War participants. Most of us were from very civilian walks of life. Upon arrival we were kitted up and sent to "boot camp". We quickly began rifle and marching drill. We were told that there were no left handed rifles and we were to all fire right handed. Being a left hander myself, as so often happens, I just adapted. It was better that than being yelled at by some over the top NCO. I would suggest many left-handers in the Great War probably took the same approach.

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I do not understand all the fuss here about this trivial topic.

I am totally left handed, still doing good in my 36th year of active service now.

If it becomes mission related, I can shoot Taliban with right and left aiming position, I hold the pistol/revolver with both hands and still hit the Taliban very well; I can shoot my missiles by pressing both, left or right thumb annihilating the common Taliban; on desk job I really can type the laptop with left and right hand -wow, issueing the new mission order against the Taliban;

one thing I cannot do so often anymore is to greet superiors with my right hand -(most guys greet me nowadays) so I leave my left and right hand in the pockets :lol:

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With all due respect sir (any officer should be aware where this is going...LOL), while this might be a trivial to you its not trivial to a piece of research I am doing. Acccording to 1914 British medical regulations, in order to be considered fit for frontline service men were required to have visual acuity of either of 6/24 (20/80) in both eyes, or 6/6 (20/20) and 6/80 (20/270) in their right and left eye respectively. Men with no less than 6/6 vision in their left eye and 6/60 (20/200) in their right eye were considered fit for support positions. I just can't work out why the right eye was favoured if men were (and my memory isn't mistaken on this) allowed to shoot with their preferred hand.

There are a number of answers: echoes of line shooting (a left hander would have thrown a real spanner in the works when a line was trying to load etc); ease of training (especially conscript armies - but these regs had been formed before 1914); equipment (SMLE was designed for right-handers by all accounts).

I'm going to have a closer look at the training regs when my wife gets better (and, therefore, I get off baby duty) to see if I can spread some more light on this. In the mean time, if any one has the British training regs available, or other relevant knowledge I love to hear it.

In relation Egbert, the German Imperial Army's vision requirements were rather less (even at the start of the war) than the British Army. In particular, enlisted men were allowed to wear glasses to get up to the required standards, something that British enlisted men were not allowed to do (the French and Italians also allowed this, if my memory serves). The difference was, in part, due to British pre-war logistical concerns. The British saw/used their small, professional army as the imperial police force and as such it often operated far from base. In such circumstances it was often impossible to resupply an enlisted man who broke/lost his glasses - especially if the unit was operating in a 'primitive' (word used advisedly) area. Officers were allowed specs.

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During my service I fired the No4 from the left shoulder with problems only on rapid fire. The SLR was no problem the cocking handle was on the left, so hold the rifle by the upper stockwith right hand cock rifle with left. I fired the both the bren and 7.62 LMG from the right shoulder using the left eye.

The SMG, I fired from both shoulders, the problem is not the risk of an accident with ammunition, although there is a risk. But mainly from carbon blown back from the normal 'blow back action of the weapon. Our armourer Sergeant in the shooting team fired from left shoulder but used a chain mail mask from the old 3.5 Rocket launcher to protect his face.

During the troop trials of the SA 80 the rifle could be changed from right to left shoulder firing by the unit armourer, but this inovation did not appear with the service model of the rifle.

Ludmilla Pavlichenko a famous Russian Sniper in WW2 used to fire her bolt operated rifle with the butt in the left shoulder using her left eye. But, operated the bolt and the trigger with her right hand. I t must have worked she was credited with 309 german kills

post-3837-1199471331.jpg

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In my Square-bashing days back in the forties we had a recruit who could fire a rifle from his right shoulder but couldn't close just one eye. On the ranges he had to tie a handerchief or similar over his left eye to be able to use the rifle correctly. He was ok with the sten.

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  • 10 years later...

Most people have a mental block against using the 'wrong' hand.

 

They just need to work at it and train themselves to overcome nature.

 

I am right handed but when I was coaching cricket I taught myself to bat and bowl with my left hand, so as to help young left handed cricketers. Bowling was much more difficult then batting as with batting the strong hand is still involved.

 

I had fun in a couple of matches by swapping to left handed batting mid over and asking for a new guard. The bowlers could not cope with it!

 

I have fired a SMLE from the left shoulder and it takes twice as long to work the bolt. I tried it because my left eye without glasses is stronger than my right.

 

Stick with it!

Edited by Gunner Bailey
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On 04/01/2008 at 12:29, Arnie said:

Ludmilla Pavlichenko a famous Russian Sniper in WW2 used to fire her bolt operated rifle with the butt in the left shoulder using her left eye. But, operated the bolt and the trigger with her right hand. I t must have worked she was credited with 309 german kills

 

post-3837-1199471331.jpg

If that is a picture of her she seems to be using a Semi-Automatic Tokarev SVT-40 rather than a bolt-action Nagant

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11 minutes ago, 4thGordons said:

If that is a picture of her she seems to be using a Semi-Automatic Tokarev SVT-40 rather than a bolt-action Nagant

Lost on me but shouldering right too unless the pull has been shortened perhaps??

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