The film suggested that these guys must be under a certain height. Makes sense, but it never occurred to me. What other military positions (MOS) have a clear cut division like that, ie not one that PT can or cannot fix, such as upper body strength etc. Tanker crews? I suppose 6.6-ft. tall pilots are out? Not necessarily WW II. Certainly pilots wanting to become astronaut candidates had to pass a very simple cut like that.
Exclude IQ tests, aptitude skills, or undercover work where you should be a certain race to fit in.
Burgess Meredith is listed as “Lieutenant” in the opening credits? Can/did the Army lie about those things? (I ask rather than simply looking up his bio because I think it’s more interesting.)
When he is shown blasting away skeets in the beginning and later on from a moving truck, is it immediately obvious that he does or doesn’t know how to hold a rifle or shoot? I have no idea either way. No reason why he couldn’t have been a shooter in real life.
Is “skeets” a word?
Also, more Cafe-Society-ish, for those of you have seen a few of these WWII films (more general ones like this or more technical ones), I think his performance is extraordinary, a backwoods, slightly tongue-tied “real” character, as opposed to everyone who usually appears in Government films (of any dept. or time), especially as Joe-draftee, who’s main task is simply to be a regional type.
Indeed, the screenwriter–perhaps Meredith picked up in this to form the character–had him say (or someone else, can’t remember) that because he was little he was picked on, and now nobody’s ever gonna do that again. A fascinating line in the film to fish for a psychology perhaps statistically more prevalent in a certain physiognomy. The quotation in my hed here is from the film, and certainly is readable that way.
Although his gunner buddy isn’t that bad in in the limited task of being a type, only one other actor inhabits his role so gracefully in the film. His range wasn’t broad–unlike the truly gifted Meredith–but he is the real thing. Makes sense that both went on successfully.
True, Meredith was too old for the character, but I’ve yet to see an actor cast in any military film to even try to look 17-18.
They let David Robinson out of his duty after the Naval Academy because he was too tall for submarines, which is what he specialized in, haha, I bet everybody on the basketball team is in submarines.
The Air Force let Chad Hennings go play for the Cowboys because he was too tall for the A-10s he was flying and there was a reduction in personnel in progress.
When the shit hits the fan everybody gets in the Army, short, tall, fat, or Forest and Bubba.
My dad was a B-24 tailgunner, he was kind of a runt but you didn’t want to fight him w/o a couple or three buddies to help you out…
Smaller frames worked well in fighters and ball turrets, too. In the infantry, Audie Murphy was, um, not tall and his was a war story for the ages.
Lt Meredith eventually made captain. They also serve who only make propaganda films, like a taller guy in that movie. We’re not talking a Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, or especially Douglas Fairbanks, Jr level of commitment, but it was more than that draft dodger John Wayne did.
I’ve heard the airforce is pretty picky about the natural vision of their pilots, even if corrective lenses can fix whatever the issue is. (though my information may be dated now that there’s widespread use of laser eye surgery, not sure if they’ll allow people with post-surgery perfect vision or not).
A few years ago having ovaries was pretty limiting to where you could serve in the US military. I think most (all?) gender prohibitions either have been lifted or will be in the next few years.
“Having grown up in the HQ of a mounted police force, I got assigned to do my military service in the cavalry. Now, the cavalry favored tall guys: easier to get on the horse, better visibility and so forth. Problem is, when the war came, we weren’t riding horses any more: for tank crews, smaller is better. Being twisted around like a ball of wool is bad, but it’s not as bad as what happens when you get out of the damned tin can. Think whole-body pins and needles.”
Gramps was above 6’. This was the Spanish cavalry; military service during the early 1930s, tanks in the '36-9 Civil War. The dude my age I know who was assigned to tanks is shorter than me, and I’m 5’4".
Per AF ROTC, surgery can be a disqualifier for that and other positions. Per a 2011 article in the Air Force Times, “eye surgery opens pilot training to wider pool.”
I don’t have much experience with shooting but the way he is holding his shotgun and firing looked just fine to me. A shotgun was being used and not a rifle. He gets the butt of the gun into his shoulder firmly and seems to be sighting quickly. He looks real to me. Even if he just made movies he probably went through basic training and would have been taught to shoot. He probably would have been taught to shoot shotguns as well as part of filming if he did not know it already.
Skeet is the name of the sport. People who do skeet shoot at clay pigeons. Skeet comes from a norwegian word for shooting. There is not a plural of the word.
There’s a saying in the Israeli army - short guys make better commandos because their brains are closer to their balls.
I don’t know of any height minimums in any part of the Israeli military; I do know that some of its most storied fighters and officers were of below average height.
During the Great War, the British Army formed Bantam battalions where the height requirement catered for physically strong men ranging from 4ft 10in to 5ft 3in.
The Soviet/Russian military has long recognized the value of shorter crewmen for its tanks, to qualify for assignment as a tank crewman one must be no taller than 1.75 meters (5’ 9"). Russian tanks have notoriously cramped interiors; reducing the space that must be protected allows a given weight of armor to be thicker.
In WWII, when the soviet union was hard pressed fighting the nazis, women were recruited to serve in combat arms. However, they were deliberately placed in roles where small size was an advantage: snipers (smaller is less visible), pilots (lower weight), and tank crew.
My father was a tail gunner in a B-17 and he always claimed to be 6 feet even. If he was shorter than 6’, it wasn’t by more than an inch. There were at least two designs of the tail turret, the “pre-Cheyenne” and “Cheyenne” styles. I don’t know which he was in. Maybe they had different gunner height requirements.
David Robinson never trained to be on submarines. Even though he continued to grow while he was in college he was always too tall for subs. He was a civil engineer officer not a nuke officer. Shore duty only. He thought about leaving at 2 years before his service obligation kicked in but the reached a compromise. His active duty obligation was lessened but he stayed in the reserves. But he did serve on active duty. Certainly the other players on service academy teams do not do it to get out of their oligations. It is very rare for an academy player to go to the pros. They are there to have a career in the military.
And there were plenty of 4Fs during WW2. At no time does the army take everybody. The standards certainly are flexible depending on need but never nonexistent.