MANCHESTER BANTAMS: The Story of a Pals' Battalion

The 23rd Manchester "Bantams" were a battalion of men below the statutory height, between 5ft and 5ft 3 inches. Public opinion in Manchester had initially been against the declaration of war in 1914, but when the time came many young men were eager to enlist, perhaps hoping to escape a cotton trade that was already on the verge of decline. "Meat every day" was a powerful recruiting slogan, together with the guarantee of employment on a soldier's return from the war. The Bantams trained in Morecambe, billeted in boarding houses and enjoying cheers as they drilled on the promenade. In January 1916 they embarked for France and faced heavy shelling for the first time in the trenches of Ferme du Bois. April saw a move to Vieille Chapelle under Brigadier James Sandilands, whom Monty himself described as "the best general I ever served under". At Neuve Chapelle the battalion took part in the first of many raids, impromptu but carefully planned sorties to gain information about the enemy. Archive photos of the ruins reveal the horrifying extent of the devastation, and at this point in the book we begin to see feature boxes naming and describing the dead, as the battalion approaches the battle of the Somme. On 29 May together with the Sherwood Foresters they suffered a devastating German attack, and on 1 July they were on their way to the Somme. There they were involved in the recapture of Trônes Wood, dense forest thick with the bodies of the men who had tried to defend it, at which the 23rd Manchesters with the Sherwood Foresters advanced towards Maltz Horn Farm with huge loss of life. Sandilands later acknowledged that there was a mistake in the orders which left them exposed in the Houlthulst Forest area. Almost half the Bantams became casualties and in 1917 they were finally debantamized and joined the regular troops. A poignant history, with fascinating eyewitness detail. 351pp, maps, archive photos.