Batman ( military ) A batman ( or batwoman ) is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant . Before the advent of motorized transport , an officer ' s batman was also in charge of the officer ' s " bat - horse " that carried the packsaddle with his officer ' s kit during a campaign . The term is derived from the obsolete " bat " , meaning " packsaddle " ( from French " bât " , from Old French " bast " , from Late Latin " bastum " ) + " man " . Duties . A batman ' s duties often include : 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 later civilian life as a domestic servant . By country . France . In the French Army the term for batman was " ordonnance " . Batmen were abolished after World War II . In the sixties there were still " batmen " in the French Army . Germany . In the German Army the batman was known as " Ordonnanz " ( " orderly " ) from the French " ordonnance " , or colloquially as " Putzer " ( " cleaner " ) or as " Bursche " ( " boy " or " valet " ) . The main character Švejk of the antimilitarist , satirical novel The Good Soldier Švejk by the Czech author J . Hašek is the most famous portrayal of a batman drafted into the Austro - Hungarian Army during the First World War . ( The 1967 German song " " Ich war der Putzer vom Kaiser " " is actually based on the British instrumental hit " I Was Kaiser Bill ' s Batman " of the same year , with original German lyrics . ) India . The old British term " orderly " continued into the post - independence Indian Army . It has now , however , been replaced with the Hindi word " sahayak " , which translates as " assistant " or " helper " . There have been suggestions to do away with the practice , as the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force already have . Italy . In the Italian Army the term for batman was " attendente " , from the Italian verb " attendere " ( same meaning of the English verb " to attend " ) . " Attendenti " were eventually abolished in 1971 . Pakistan . The term Batman , introduced by the British , is still used in the Pakistan Army . Senior officers are provided with batmen , considered general household help . Russia and the Soviet Union . The Imperial Russian Army used the term " denshchik " ( ) for a batman . In the Russian Empire higher - ranking cavalry officers often chose Cossacks for these roles as they could be reasonably depended on to survive combat , and were also known for resourcefulness on campaign . However , they were hired help , and had to be provided with a horse also . The lower - ranking officers from serf - owning families brought a servant from home they were familiar with , particularly the infantry and artillery officers that did not require additional protection in combat , and tended to leave the servants with the unit baggage train . After abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire ( 1861 ) , many officers went on campaign without servants . Although the positions were abolished in the post - Revolutionary Soviet Union , the recognition that higher - ranking officers required assistance soon fostered an unofficial reintroduction of the role through secondment of an NCO to the officer ' s staff , usually also as the driver , which also at one stage became their unofficial role and title as many officers often " lived " out of their vehicles . The term was borrowed from the French , but adopted to Russian pronunciation as " ordinarets " ( ) . Several " ordirnartsy " of the marshals and generals commanding Fronts and armies during the Second World War wrote memoirs about their service . For example Zhukov ' s " driver " was a semi - professional racing car driver Aleksandr Nikolaevich Buchin who met Zhukov by accident literally on the first day of the war when Zhukov ' s previous elderly driver failed to get the vehicle he was in out of the rut . Buchin drove Zhukov throughout the war and although he begun the war as a private , he ended the war in the rank of a captain . Buchin wrote his memoirs called " One hundred and seventy thousand kilometres with Zhukov " , at the suggestion of the marshal in the 1970s . Turkey . The term " posta " is informally used to apply to a soldier that attends an officer . United Kingdom . The official term used by the British Army in the First World War was Soldier - Servant . Every officer was assigned a servant , usually chosen by himself from among his men . The term " batman " replaced this in the inter - war years . By the Second World War , only senior officers of the Army and Royal Air Force were officially assigned their own batmen , with junior officers usually having the services of one batman between several officers . Batwomen also served in the women ' s services . Batman was usually seen as a desirable position . The soldier was exempted from more onerous duties and often got better rations and other favours from his officer . Senior officers ' batmen usually received fast promotion to lance - corporal rank , with many becoming corporal s and even sergeant s . The position was generally phased out after the war . Officers of the Household Division still have orderlies . In the Royal Navy the stewards performed many of the duties of batmen in the other services . Aboard ship , only captains and admiral s were assigned personal stewards , with the other officers being served by a pool of officers ' stewards . Most vessels carried at least two stewards , with larger vessels carrying considerably more . The term " orderly " was often used instead of " batman " in the colonial forces , especially in the British Indian Army . The orderly was frequently a civilian instead of a soldier . 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 Leader s or above in command appointments as of 1 April 1972 . One famous example of officer and batman during the Second World War was British actor David Niven and fellow actor Peter Ustinov . Niven and Ustinov were working on the film " The Way Ahead " , as actor and writer respectively , but the difference in their ranks - Niven was a Lieutenant - Colonel and Ustinov a private - made their regular association militarily impossible ; to solve the problem , Ustinov was appointed as Niven ' s batman . In 1967 , the pseudonymous Whistling Jack Smith ( actually a session vocalist ) recorded an all - whistling number called " I Was Kaiser Bill ' s Batman " , which went Top 5 in the UK . Despite a title that baffled most Americans ( who no doubt were thinking of the other Batman ) , the tune hit # 20 on the " Billboard " charts . J . R . R . Tolkien took the relationship of his characters Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins from his observations while in military service during World War I of the relationship between a batman and his officer . In the musical film " Chitty Chitty Bang Bang " , Caractacus Potts ' s father was Lord Scrumptious ' s batman . In the television series " Downton Abbey " , Lord Grantham ' s valet , Mr Bates , was his batman in the Boer War ; it also appears that William Mason was assigned to be Matthew Crawley ' s batman in the First World War . United States . In the United States Army the term " dog robber " ( from the peacetime occupation of the title character of " The Good Soldier Švejk " , a fictional batman ) 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 " . Aides are available to support some of the needs of general officers who serve in command positions in the rank of Brigadier General and above , and their equivalent naval ranks . These aides " perform tasks and details that , if performed by general or flag officers , would be at the expense of the officer ’ s primary military and official duties . " However , their assistance is restricted to only those tasks which are directly related to an officer ' s official duties . According to the policy , " No officer may use an enlisted member as a servant for duties that contribute only to the officer ' s personal benefit and that have no reasonable connection with the officer ' s official responsibilities . Fiction . In the novel " Cold Days " by author Jim Butcher the lead character , Harry Dresden is assigned a Batman , and initially both Harry and Cat Sith are very unhappy with this assignment .