 STANDING just over 5ft tall, they were the army of unsung heroes who fought and died in the Great War. The Birkenhead Bantams - a group of men rejected by the army in 1914 for being under 5ft 3ins - decided to form their own battalion. Now their full story has been told for the first time in a newbook, Cheshire Bantams, released next week. Author Stephen McGreal, 52, of Susan Grove, Moreton, spent eight years researching the book that tells of the men's struggle to reach the front-line. Mr McGreal said: "I started the book because I was fascinated with the Bantams' struggle and their story. "At the time, the British Medical Association were against the idea of short men fighting in the war because they thought small people had smaller brains. "Many of these men were coal miners from the north who wanted to do their bit for their country. "There were appeals at the time in the ECHO for shorter soldiers to come forward and join the Bantams and the support they received from all over the country was phenomenal. "Now I think it's important to remember them as we remember all the young men who died who fought for us in the war." The law in the early 1900s stipulated that men under 5ft 3ins could not serve in the army. But with the support of Alfred Bigland, the then Birkenhead MP, men between 5ft and 5ft 3ins and otherwise medically fit, won permission from the war office to go to fight. They became known as Bigland's Birkenhead Bantams and enlisted 3,000 short soldiers from all over the country who went on to serve in the Battle of the Somme. Roy Dennett, chairman of the Birkenhead History Society, said: "This is the first full-length book on the Bantams and it's very important that their story is remembered. "These were men with great patriotism who fought and died bravely for their country and had to struggle for the right to do that. "It's also important that the story of Bigland himself is told as he was an incredibly influential politician in Merseyside." Bigland's Birkenhead Bantams > > > | 
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