All thef the world with treasuriesed a their disposal at their head could not put a track on the blue ridge or take a drink from ohio river. If we were going to fall as a that it and country, would be us. That we would do it to ourselves. Whats happened here in the United States of america founding through its travails and victories, not for ng that, is a recipe ending it and not continuing it and giving new its ations the hope that inspired in the past. Colorado springs is home to academy. Force and we close out the cspan citys tour of Colorado Springs colonel mark welles talking bout his book courage and air warfare the allied accrue experience in the Second World War. When many people think about air there are a number of images and potential that come to mind. The first instance was in the world war arguably and i think for the public in general for his torians glamor, a sense of nights of the sky, wind in the wire kind of thing. Nights of the air fighting chivalrous combat the reality. Life spans were short. Airplanes broke down and people ere killed at a pretty regular basis. I decided to do the comparison based on o air forces the fact that for faculty way afforded the pportunity to study in britain in 19 ninetyeight being an airman and interested in air power history, i had a case study that was the royal al air force and Bomber Command and u. S. Army air force with the ighth air force or both conducting a sustained air germany. Against nazi so i had this test case and i was curious in particular about dimension. The casualty rate and im in ing from 39 to 45 just Bomber Command is frequently 56,000. About f that 56,000 almost 47,000 were killed and about 9 to 10,000 ended up in british or me, german prisoner of war camps. A casualty rate that is almost 50 in Bomber Command. U. S. Army eighth air force which was the Principal Air force for the campaign in bing 26,000 there were about illed or wounded and another camps. Or so in p. O. W. So you have a casualty rate 40 and 50 . Hats substantial given the number of men involved. Well, its fair to say for all air combatasons that during the Second World War was and for these air crew members in particular. Reacted to stress much the same way. Thats worth ings mentioning is the on again and again nature of the air war and different new kind of stress, potentially different in the kind of stress nd infantry a soldier might experience in the european theatre of world war ii. Remember, these crews for the most part were based in britain so, depending on the weather nd the target for the day or the mission, they might spend hair rowing hours and then they would come of the mission and try to decompress and very depending on what was going on for the next or depending on or the weather in britain which very often is rainy, they might days off. Al so there was this on again off americans ty for certainly. And that brought a bit of to the nature of the war for them. Enjoying themselves in london and being other words faced with almost certain death the next. British air se of crew the same sorts of things, the difference for them was they were living basically in their country and some of them actually had families and within measurable distance from the air field. Have u have air crew that to carry out military missions and deal o go home with the uncertainty with family life. It was that unusual it was that unusual quality that led to stress and anxiety. One again, based organizational and leadership and cultural factors, its fair 8th airn the u. S. Army force and some of this is the our fix. In the First World War, that there was a recognition that all airmen or soldiers, men as you could imagine for the most part, these were men combatants, that everybody was subject to anxiety. That fear, in other words, was perfectly normal, that somebody should not feel like a coward if they felt fear. The message was quite clear. To expect it. And to deal with it. And that there was going to be a support system to help american airmen do that. There was less of recognition in britain that that would be the case, particularly early on. Later, they began to adapt. But early on, because in britain there was this sense that men of character would be people of courage. Say there was less tolerance of the effects of anxiety in britain. Historians have to kind of examine the evidence and need to be careful about making sweeping assertions, but there is some evidence that in britain at the time there was less willingness to admit that all men would subject to stress and anxiety. There were fears in the Royal Air Force that, and some of this was made explicit by commanders, that if they allowed any weakness with regard to the aircrew force, that this could spread, that somehow this would be like, for lack of a better term, a disease that might in fact the whole unit. Its fair in enough to say that it was a different attitude in the 8th air force. Ptsd is a more modern term. There was clear recognition, as i indicated in the british and Bomber Command, the Royal Air Force and the u. S. Army air forces, that anxiety would be the result of stress and had to be dealt with. In the case of the United States and its interesting even to note the language. We were careful to use the term combat fatigue in those days. Word fatigue is an interesting selection of word, because it connotes that you are tired. But people who are tired can recover. So combat fatigue is recoverable. Combat stress, that sort of thing. And that was a result of what we learned from the First World War where on both sides, the bir the british and the americans had used the term shell shock. There was a sense that some of these stresses were physiological. Concussion if a nearby artillery shell exploding might have had an impact on a soldiers brain these disorders. By the Second World War, it was clear that this was fear and anxiety. The United States forces, in particular, it goes back to the general sense that of all people held in combat for long enough are subject to the result of anxiety, showed symptoms like i said of not being able to sleep or not alcoholism or hypersexuality or whatever it was. They were not function as well. That was combat fatigue and could be identified. And so, we developed a system which relates to even our modern system today. In those days, as a result, these people were be treated as close as they could to the unit they were located. We use the term proximity. There was the sense that the quicker they were treated, in other words with immediacy, that their chances of recovery were better. They made it very, very clear that there was an expectation that they would recover and rejoin her unit. The treatmentays philosophy was called proximity and immediacy and expectancy. As a result of that, the American Forces set up what we would legitimately call resthomes. And as you can imagine with the reverence of aircrew at the time, they called them flack farms. At the end of a certain period, predesignated, maybe two or three months in combat, depending on the number of missions 10 to 15 missions aircrew were pulled out of the Front Line Service and sent to these rest homes. In the case of britain in the war, these were manors, large homes there in britain. Very often on a Beautiful Lake whereice kind of retreat these airmen were fed very, very well. They had sports activities. They could listen to music. And quite quaintly as you might imagine they could meet young ladies from the red cross of high reputation. These activities structured in a sense, but designed to make the aircrew relax and forget about recent had seen in memory. As you can imagine, the air force today has spent some time on the whole issue of combat stress and aircrew stress. The accident rate in our air forces absolutely infinitesimal, tiny compared to what it was during the Second World War. We have spent millions of dollars and much training time to make aviation, even combat aviation, much safer and more effective. The modern air war, no matter how it is marked by high speed aircraft or remotely title remotely piloted vehicles, or technology, computer guided weapons, as long as it has a human dimension, a Human Element, it is going to be subject to the same kind of uncertainty of physical exertion, chance. And an atmosphere of war and danger. When there is a Human Element and that atmosphere, you are going to have a reaction. Stress and anxiety. And it is something that commanders and physicians will have to deal with
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