Another challenge for the Forum - smallest man on the Western Front

[aradgick]

This may not be answerable, but I'll ask anyway.

In the War Diary for the 2nd Battalion, Royal Welsh Regiment, the entry for 2nd October 1917 reads:

"Draft of 29 O.R. joined battalion. This includes the smallest man on the Western Front."

So who was this short man, and was he the shortest?

Andrewr

[Seadog]

This forum gets better by the day

[Guest]

Couple of possibles.

Manchester Evening News 5/4/1915 " The smallest soldier. Private E Williams, of Trefriw, who recently joined the Degawny Bantam Battalion, is credited with being the smallest soldier in the British Army. "

Evening Telegraph 26/5/1915 " Drummer Absalom of the 3rd Battalion of the 4th city of London royal Fusiliers is said to be the smallest member of the British Army. He is not four feet high, and it is difficult to believe that he is sixteen years old. "

" This forum gets better by the day " The long and the short and the tall Norman.


Mike

[CGM]

Although THIS THREAD actually starts with a discussion about the tallest soldier it goes on to include the shortest, including some photographs.

CGM

[hazelclark]

By 1918 they must have been desperate. I was somewhat shocked to discover that my great uncle (the guy in my picture) was only 5'2!!

H

[Tom W.]

Frank Sauliere--the youngest soldier in the AEF--arrived in France at the age of twelve. When he enlisted, he and his parents lied about his age and said he was sixteen. This photo was taken when he was fourteen. He served with the 18th Engineer Regiment and was wounded in the face in action.

I'm betting he was well under five feet tall.

[Sepoy]

I posted this one recently following an enquiry about the Artist Rifles. Unfortunately, I do not know their names or heights but It just makes me smile.

Sepoy

[Andrew Upton]

I posted this one recently following an enquiry about the Artist Rifles. Unfortunately, I do not know their names or heights but It just makes me smile.

The belts are 3-inches wide, so using that as a reference point I get a rough height of 6ft 3in for the monster, and 4ft 8in for the midget... possibly a slight under-estimate as I have to guess where their heads stop under their caps...

[Guest Ivor Hughes]

Pte 24826 Benjamin William Thomas Pulham was at his full adult height of 4' 8½" when he enlisted in 14Bn Gloucestershire Regiment on 22 October 1915. He was issued with the BWM Pair, posthumously.

Although his online MIC and pension records etc show discharge date of 30 August 1916 (unfit), CWGC records show him as having died in 1918 as an AVC soldier at an Army Veterinary Corps Hospital in Winchester. But there is no matching MIC. I have queried this with CWGC and am waiting.

Anyway, Pulham was not necessarily the shortest soldier on active service but the bar is now set at 4' 8½"

My interest is that I have and was researching his death plaque.

[centurion]

Special Enlistment did allow the waiving of height requirements if the man had some special skills or a trade needed by the army.

[Moonraker]

Lieutenant Colonel George G Nasmith

of the Canadian Expeditionary Office, said to be just 4ft 6in. Perhaps the most distinguished of the very short soldiers?

I noted his stature when browsing

eBay

He's the man front right ( looking at the photo) which I think may have been taken on Salisbury Plain, where Nasmith proved very useful. The magazine from which this is taken is dated February 20, 1915 and Nasmith did not leave for France until March. Confusingly, the caption spells his name as "Nasmyth".

His memoirs

are available as a free download.

And I've just looked at them - again, for I consulted them three or fours ago - and there are some frank accounts of his time in England.

Moonraker

[Uncle George]

Lieutenant Colonel George G Nasmith

His memoirs

are available as a free download.

Very interesting memoirs: I liked the bit about the debate in the Commons:

"...Churchill gave one the impression of having much force of character, despite his stuttering, but Bonar Law was the man you felt could be trusted to look upon any proposition with coolness and play the safe game for his country."

[BullerTurner]

I posted this one recently following an enquiry about the Artist Rifles. Unfortunately, I do not know their names or heights but It just makes me smile.

Sepoy

e

Which one is 'Mars' and which one 'Minerva'?

[trajan]

There are any number of these tallest and shortest in the German photographs. In some cases you can get their heights approximately from their rifle, so in one photograph, of two men in the 57.IR, the Gew.98 at 1,250 mm only comes up to his shoulder, and his head is about 1/3rd more than his S.98, so that's about 30 cm, so total height of about 1.5 or 4'9"-4'10"... Another man, with his pickelhaube on, is holding his Gew.98 with fixed S.98/05, a total height of 1.6m. or so, and the crest of his pickel is below the bayonet point...

Trajan