Batman (army)

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For other uses, see batman (disambiguation).

A batman is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant.

The term is derived from the obsolete bat, packsaddle (from French bât, from Old French bast, from Late Latin bastum) + man.

A Batman's 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 have time or inclination to do

The action of serving as a batman was referred to as "batting".

In armies where officers typically came from the upper class, it was not unusual for a former batman to follow the officer into civilian life as a domestic servant.

In the German army the post was known as der Putzer (cleaner) or Bursche (fellow). 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'.

In the United States Army the term "dog robber" was unofficially used, although that could also be applied to a junior officer who acted as a gofer to somebody with high rank. The position was made famous by James Garner in the movie The Americanization of Emily. One example of a famous officer and batman was British actor David Niven, who had fellow actor Peter Ustinov as his batman.

In the Indian army the word batman has now been replaced with the Hindi word Sahayak which translates to "assistant" or "caretaker". Orderly was another term which was used, which is also now obsolete.

Baldrick is Blackadder's batman in Blackadder Goes Forth.

In the British Armed Forces, the term "batman" or "batwoman" was formerly also applied to a civilian who cleaned officers' messes or married quarters. In the Royal Air Force, free married quarters cleaning services were phased out for all officers except Squadron Leaders or above in command appointments as of 1 April 1972.