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Battle Exhaustion: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939-1945

Amazon.com Price:  $94.82 (as of 23/04/2019 04:43 PST- Details)

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Description

At the outset of the Second World War Canadians wanted to avoid the horrors encountered on the western front in 1914-18, one of the vital significant of which was once “shell shock.” Most medical personnel preferred not to assign to combat those who showed neurotic symptoms all the way through training, but this approach was once challenged by the Canadian Psychological Association and by the new Personnel Selection Directorate established in 1941. Personnel Selection claimed with the intention to distinguish, before training, between those suited and those unsuited to combat duty. Alternatively, when Canadian troops went into battle in Italy, the preparatory work gave the impression to have had little affect. Canadian losses because of “battle exhaustion” were no less than those of other allied forces. Front-line remedy allowed about half of these to return to their units, but eventually a very large number of soldiers were assigned to non-combat roles because it was once judged they could no longer function effectively in battle. Similar problems were encountered in Normandy, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. Copp and McAndrew are critical of military commanders who thought strict discipline coupled with high morale from good training and success in battle would keep battle exhaustion in check, and of officers in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps who tried to impose theoretical solutions that did not fit the circumstances. The authors show how some doctors, the use of energy and common sense, contributed to the evolution of contemporary psychiatric ideas about the realities of large-scale psychological casualties.

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