Batman (army)
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A batman is a soldier assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant.
Duties often include:
- acting as a "runner" to convey orders from the officer to subordinates
- maintaining the officer's uniform and personal equipment as a valet
- driving the officer's vehicle, sometimes under combat conditions
- other miscellaneous tasks the officer does not himself (or herself) have time or inclination to do
In the German army the post was known as 'Der Putzer'. A popular German army song 'Ich war der Putzer vom Kaiser' sung during World War I tells of a soldier who missed the horrors of service on the Western front by being the batman to Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was set to a contemporary tune for a whistling version in 1967, and released under the title 'I was Kaiser Bill's Batman' in the United Kingdom and United States. The artist, John O'Neill, recorded it under the name 'Whistling Jack Smith'.
External links
- Recollections from memory about batmen (http://www.defencejournal.com/2001/july/batmen.htm)