Military's Strangest Campaigns & Characters by Tom Quinn

Author:Tom Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910232514
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2015-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

TALL STORY

ENGLAND, 1914

Stories of underage boys joining up during World War One are legion but there are equally extraordinary tales of undersized boys doing their utmost to get into the army.

Private John Singleton of the 7th Sherwood Foresters is a case in point – he made several attempts to join the regular army but each time he was turned down on the grounds that, at just five foot, he was too short. In the early part of the Great War the minimum accepted height was five foot three inches and this was not reduced to five foot until heavy losses created a need for more desperate recruiting measures.

Critics of the war were in a tiny despised minority during 1914 and men who were unable to join for one reason or another were often ostracised. Private Singleton’s reaction to his failure is not therefore surprising. In an interview he explained the situation and his solution:

My four brothers had all joined up and I was very ashamed not to be in the army. So I went to the Territorial Army Drill Hall in Derby Road, Nottingham, and offered the recruiting Sergeant there, a two shilling postal order if he would accept me. He did so, and when it was over and I’d signed up, we both went along to the local pub, cashed the postal order and drank the proceeds. My wife was working in the shell factory at the time and when she came home I told her I had joined up.

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