# Obesity and the draft in WW2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 25, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378 "2010-12-25T21:30:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378/81 "2014-07-13T10:23:30Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Going off at a rather wild tangent (different country, different war … (notwithstanding their ages of – as above – about 14 – 16). . One of the reasons boys that age are not now accepted in the USA/Aus/UK army is that in WWI, when they were allowed to sneak in, it was found that they weren’t suitable for trench warfare. At that age, it’s difficult to get them to stay awake while on guard duty. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378/82 "2014-07-13T10:29:18Z")
My father cheated on his height (he was too tall) to maintain eligibility in WWII. (Obviously, different rules for different sections). He also modelled the “tall” end of a landing craft – even then you would think that would be referenced to a standard, but for whatever reason they used him. Which leads to the idea that any individual taller than him would have had difficulty fitting into the landing craft, giving reason for rejecting fit individuals just based on height. At the other end of his life, he had to loose weight to qualify for surgery – he was too heavy for hospital standard procedures. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378/83 "2014-07-13T13:42:10Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > One of the reasons boys that age [early-ish teens] are not now accepted in the USA/Aus/UK army is that in WWI, when they were allowed to sneak in, it was found that they weren’t suitable for trench warfare. At that age, it’s difficult to get them to stay awake while on guard duty. I suspect that it varied – there must have been some nasty little sods who were unusually hardy re teenage sleep requirements etc., and who made wonderful fighters; but on the whole, “sense is made”. I recall from a novel with an early-World War I setting – a lieutenant, professional in the British Army, keeps finding ever-younger lads in his unit, who have lied about their ages to join up. He gets increasingly worried about the phenomenon, and increasingly concerned that it must be dealt with. Finally, by chance he runs into a cousin of his who has enlisted, and who he knows is aged fourteen. The lieutenant explodes: “JESUS CHRIST ! Now they’re sending me bloody CHILDREN !” The cousin expostulates, “Jack, I’m not a child ! That’s beastly unfair !” Lieutenant: “Oh, fuck it, I give up. Soldier, go back to your squad, before you’re missed.” ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378/84 "2014-07-13T15:31:15Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > Didn’t most units have a hillbilly in addition to the guy from Brooklyn (says the guy who grew up in East Tennessee and later lived in Brooklyn)? Either a hillbilly or a Texan. Rarely both. You needed a Jew, someone nicknamed “Ski”, and someone with an Irish surname. The guy from Brooklyn was often Italian. And some WASPs too. Maybe one from Boston who didn’t have a MA accent and smoked a pipe, and some midwesterners. There wasn’t much difference between Hollywood WWII infantry squads and B-17 crews. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378/85 "2014-07-13T15:57:10Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > …If they were really desperate, it would seem that they would have just pulled him out of basic for a couple weeks, fattened him up a bit, and they sent him back in with instructions to eat more. He was a volunteer, not a draftee so he wasn’t trying to pull anything… I remember reading a WWII soldier’s memoir in which he wrote that his recruiter kept a drawerful of bananas, pastry etc. in his desk to fatten up kids who were right on the line of being underweight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-and-the-draft-in-ww2/565378.md?page=4)