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BATTLE EXHAUSTION: THE DILEMMA OF PSYCHIATRIC CASUALTIES IN NORMANDY, JUNE–AUGUST 1944

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2010

EDGAR JONES  and
STEPHEN IRONSIDE
EDGAR JONES*
Affiliation:
King's Centre for Military Health Research, King's CollegeLondon
STEPHEN IRONSIDE*
Affiliation:
King's Centre for Military Health Research, King's CollegeLondon
*
King's Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, Weston Education Centre, 10 Cutcombe Road, London SE5 9RJ[email protected]
King's Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, Weston Education Centre, 10 Cutcombe Road, London SE5 9RJ[email protected]
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Abstract

During the Second World War, controversy surrounded not the inevitability of psychiatric casualties but the extent to which they could be minimized by selection, training, morale, and leadership. By early 1944, when planning for the D-Day landings was advanced, the problem of the psychiatric battle casualty was considered manageable by careful preparation and clinical understanding. The campaign to liberate Europe offered the newly formed Directorate of Army Psychiatry an opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness. Psychiatric services were deployed to Normandy to maximize the return of front-line troops to duty. Commanders, however, entertained doubts about the value of military psychiatrists. By offering a sanctioned escape route from battle, some believed that their mere presence undermined the fighting spirit of combat troops. The records of 32 General (Psychiatric) Hospital have been analysed to discover categories of troops most vulnerable to breakdown and to assess the impact of front-line treatments. Infantry soldiers, those most likely to be killed, were disproportionately represented amongst admissions. Senior non-commissioned officers were also at elevated risk of breakdown, some being war weary from earlier campaigns. Probably 36 per cent of admissions returned to combatant duty, and 53 per cent were evacuated to the UK. The scale of psychiatric casualties revealed failures in pre-deployment screening.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 109 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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