Tonight we are very pleased to welcome back mark wilkinson. He has also been the director at the atwood house museum. Mr. Wilkins is a published auth author. He has a masters from Harvard University and he is currently working on several books related to world war one aviation. Mr. Will kins is also conservativing as producer of aerial effects documentary film. His new book, aeroneurosis. Due to unforeseen complications, we dont have any copies you can have signed tonight. The speaker graciously agreed to personalize some as well. Please join us in welcoming mark wilkins. Thank you for that very nice introduction, crystal. Im very happy to be here tonight. Thank you all for coming. I hope you find this topic as fascinating as i do. Basically the to give you a little background, the book was something i did for air and space magazine. Anyway, the research for that article sort of opened my eyes to the amount of material about how greatly about a a lot of these First World War pilots suffered. It was in its infancy and these people were not prepared for what await ed them at the front. The first gives you a background of the context, and then i have about five case studies taken from the book and a lot of direct quotes about how theyfelt at the time and i ask that you save your questions for the end and lets get rolling here. I brought my one copy of the book. The publisher assured me they would be here. I dont know why but theyre not here. I hope you see it fit to buy a copy. There is a lot of fascinating reading in there. This is kind o of a overview of what we will cover tonight talking about the various components. Chief among them is this coming out of the Industrial Revolution a fantastic array of what was produced. People are making these things and developing these things and no one could piece together the big picture. All right, urbanization this was students of history out there. The war reconstruction was a movement in america and other countries as well. And the jobs, the farmers, this sort of thing, sub distance. They had more jobs and promise of steady work. Their slow process of urbanization. Flocking to the cities, income tax, also, and also the guilded age, the edwardian age. I mentioned a dazzlining array new inventions. We have henry ford and the model t. People rip that off. If a car could be mass produced that way, text tile mills, one of our case studies tonight, he had an amazing factory in the south. But anyway, all of these things were being produced and not so fun stuff as well as well find out. An interesting notion, i dont know if anyone is familiar with this guys writings, but he is kind of kooky. He came up with a term neurasthenia. He blamed steam pour, magazines, d dissemination of power, sciences, and the mental activity of women. He does touch on an interesting. It is at the end. And they are adjusting. And we are moving forward toward the first word war. Hiram maxim. One of the chief architects of the slaughter. Airplanes, he had all of these. He had a shotgun or a rifle. He was aiming at something, fired, and the recoil knocked him to the ground. He thought there ought to be a way to harness that energy of that recoil. That is what happened when he invented his machine gun. He spent weeks and weeks and weeks draws. He machined the parts for his first machine gun, he called the real daisy. And it was the gun you saw the western front and the guns you saw on the aircraft and ships, and he was a very savvy businessman. He was made sir maxim around the turn of century. He inforgot in really tight wit british military. He went all over the world in fact, promoting his gun, china said we dont want such a thing, it fires too fast, get out of here. That was interesting. And turkey they said you have not invented a suitable vice. If you can come up with something that is a really cool vice. Were not interested in your gun. Pretty interesting. Anyway, one of the interesting things about maxims thought process was that he thought it would only be used on savages. Native people, not civilized people. It is an interesting mental construct that he produced for himself. There was a number of battles where the british army just mowed down the oncoming native people that were attacking them. I think this was in africa, and he was a little appalled by it and want today sort of quickly, but eventually disenfranchise himself from this invention. And he invented a pipe of peace, right, could not go further in the other direction. It was a menthol inhaler, and he wanted this little pipe of peace to expunge the history of the machine gun for himself. In the closing chapter of his memoirs he says i suppose my pipe of peace will obliterate i will be remembered for the pipe of peace, not the machine gun. And of course that was not further from the truth. So this was in the hands of everybody. Every war had access to this gun. And of course nobody could see the big picture. War tactics, that would be used for charges, et cetera, at the western front now into machine gunfire because people could not connect the dots and the old tactics that were being employed. Here is another good guy. Fritz haber, the inventor of poisonous gas. Because he was german, he was in war for the fatherland. I believe it is mustard gas or chlorine gas. Of course this was another thing that was available. All of these gases were available and, you know, it was an interesting thing. People were so preoccupied with can we do something, they didnt ask themselves should we do something. Once its out there, once you have invented this thing, the specter of military application is never far away. Never has been. So these things were being developed in an isolated fashion. Submarines. The turtle of 1775. One of the strange things there. Jules vernes 20,000 leagues under the sea. This cou so basically between 1870 and 1914 england, france, and germany had subs. But do we want to use them, right . Lord nelson called them buglarious sneak dodges down blow. He thoug below. He thought it was unmanly. You should not have the to resort to using subs. In england, churchill who was one of the first sealords at this time. They all debated look, if germany is s going to use them, were going to look at them. So basically everybody kind of agreed that they were going to use this technology. They just it was just an abstract concept. They could not see that the First World War was just over the horizon. They sort of back burnered it. They thought it would not happen but when it did germany, well, well get to that in a minute. So military aviation. Yes te is an aviation talk. The flight being used for million tear application and that is interested because they were key on getting that military contract. It is in all of their writings. It was the thing they wanted, the u. S. Government to buy their flier and it is ultimately what happened, and there was a time where there was a very dynamic concept. And basically there is a control and an okay airplane. You know, it looks like an airplane with a fussil lodge. France was just, wow. They were talking the ball and running with it. Okay . You had the channel crossing in 1909. And the big thing was in england when they crossed the channel, everyone realized and freaked out that look, were not going to be frequented by our navy any more. The airplanes are going to just fly over and bomb or attack our island. So this was a huge worry so the minister of war called for an air service in the uk and england. And he could see the writing on the wall. He knew this was Cutting Edge Technology that would be adapted by all nations and it was. It was fast tracked and it was infectious. One country saw they had a group of flying machines and every other company wanted them, too. They did get their government contract for their flier and the thing with the rights, i mean, it is kind of a tiger chasing its tail. They didnt want to show their airport unless they had a contract in hand but no one wanted to buy it until they saw it fly. So it was a bottleneck. And theyre like were not going to fly unless you buy it and they said were not going to fly it unless you buy it. Anyone that read the bishop boys it chroniclizes this. You had tanks involved during the war. The zeplins. There is a great debate at the end of the 19th century. Air shirts, fixed wing aircraft and evolved in bar lel. They were probably more devastating than any other airport. London and paris and they would sit out on their balconies and watch the raids as int entertainment. It was silver things naekisneak across the sky. Aircraft evolved aten exponential rate during the war. You think about the wright model flier, the model b, or the 11 and you look at the end of the war, the 13, the various aircraft that for four years, they were moving forward. The tactics that were mired in old thinking. There was none of that. They were doing something right and they ripped them off. And it was a very compressed time line. There was often a plane coming that was better than the previous one. Beginning of the war, you also saw progression from observation because because of the trench w w warfare. They are crossing that type of terrain. So aircraft finally had a role. We could fly over, resport on movements, and reconnaissance began the chief thing. And you have they terminal air space, and they were throwing shoes at each other, and hammers, and people started to strap shotguns to the planes to take shots and then a fixed point and shoot weapon at the close of the war. Combat evolved and it was pretty quick. They escort the planes and the bombers, right . So what else . The machine gun, boy spoison ga huge shells, they could see them flying through the air. You could see a dark shape going through the arch of its it would slow down the apex of that so they could see them and in the middle of this the poppies that, i actually want to read from the book this passage. The desecrated cemeteries, the poppies were growing poppies from the lips of craters, undaunted by the desolation. Heedless of human furry and stupidity. And of course you all know the famous poem and it became the first iconic symbol of the First World War. They were growing in the strangest of places. A lot of weird things happened at the western front that were not expected artillery was all day long. Late at night around 10 00 or 11 00 the birds would start to chirp all day long. You had flowers growing on clumps of mangled carnage, and all of these fantastic weapons, and one thing that you see this in all of the writings of pilots but troops and mariners, people in tanks. They felt like they were fighting a faceless enemy that was shrouded in a war of machines. Trenches were so far, the artillery was burying people alive. Very different context from the frontal assaults of previous wars where you would see your enemy up close. And you could argue that this facilitated the slaughter. And this is the impact problem that we have with our fliers that well goat in a bit. The take aways when the people confronted their victims as people they suffered grieveously. Were talking about the fliers. Had with french warfar going so poorly, people were resigned to their fate. The fliers that were lost far above it all flying in this one on one type of combat as opposed to the group slaughter of the trenches below. It was a roman romanticized not. People that, the cards were, look at the pictures, i have two of them here. These people were made out to be larger than life and it gave people hope in the trenches in short. There was an idealized notion for the stuff that is overdone, admitted admittedly, and they all promoted their aces, especially france and e gegermany. The air mar shashall thought it up fair, but what he didnt realize is that the troops, the people in the trenches, they needed her ros. They needed something to point to that was working in this war. Seeming to work, anyway, and these fliers fit that purpose and most of the pilots they knew they were far from invincible. The aces died just like everybody else. But for a time especially over time that image became more and more burnished. There was ceremonies that were very amped up and publicized event and all of the people and the papers would see this. And people like this, it was actively promoted and it gave people home well get to george and the way that france fell in love with this man and it was fairly unique. I call him the antiace. He didnt really fit the ace archety archetype. Anyway, what else can i talk about this. Some people were disgusted. He was, you know, well get to that im getting ahead of myself. Finally aviation psychiatry. During the First World War it is fascinating. Youre familiar with the term shell shock, i assume . Which was an inadequate term to describe what was happening to people people that came from largely rural environments and used to a very quiet lifestyle being thrust into what i call a tech shock of a western front where you have a faceless enemy destroying everything around you. Shell shock, the notion of military psychiatry with the war, prior to the war notions of any kind of mental problems was largely viewed as cowardice. This continued in the First World War. In england alone, 3,000 cases of cowardice. But after the war, after these sort of sack official executions, they say many of these guys were not to blame. They were suffering from general war neurosis. So this is a title of my book. I was not really whaep happy wi it is any nervous condition brought on by flying. If you are a person with a kogs, killing people is a game changer. Backing up again, early treatments and diagnosis for shell shock and any kind of neurosis was designed to get them back into the trenches and back into the cockpits as quickly as possible. It was seen as a physiomechanical if subpoena a physical thing and with treatment they be returned to duty but the problem with that is that that type of treatment took a long time. If they saw it as psychological or psychiatric, maybe a few weeks in a rest hospital, then they could be returned to the front. That was seen as more expeditious to getting these guys back to the fighting. It was not really compassionate. It was structural to win the war. Okay . So you had a lot of repression going on in the First World War. This was actively encouraged in the quad rons. The british, for example, you see this with Elliott White springs, there was a notion that within the squadron that you maintain a disposition of cheerfulness, upbeat dialogue. You dont talk about what is bothering you. This type of repression they came to understand was ex exponenti exponentially accelerating, this is where they favored that and i dont know if youre particular with rivers and Craig Lockhart, and his theories, but it was basically to confront what is bothering you as quickly as possible will heal you. And a lot of the a lot of the other types of doctors were advocating rebregs. With enough rest, music, light entertainment, youll be fine. This is what a lot of pilots did, what was eroding their hearts and souls was cumulative. Even after the rest they carried that trauma with them and it would snowball and tleed a phenomenal break down. That is Craig Lockhart hospital. That is rivers this is a firing squad shooting someone accused of cowardice. This needs to explanation. This guy is not having a good day. So at the end of the day, they talked about what lead to it, they didnt realize that oxygen want was a phenomenon. You start to suffer from mild oxyg oxygen, they had all of this stuff and they didnt know why. Long periods of flying without leave. They didnt raeltz the necessity of rest and when a pilot is getting drama tided he needs to be taken off of front line duty. Control and tobacco. Ted parsons, and i have a quote from him in a minute. He was advocating control and all of the pilots drank as a tonic for their nerves. A steady diet of milk and brandy to deal with high altitudes and low altitudes. They would take a photographic with them because it was the only way they could serve their nerves. Well get to another fascinating s subject. He made the top five of things that should have taken him offline. Most of the mie lpilots would b watch washed out instantly. All of the doctors at the time said imagination is not a good thing for a combat pilot, but you read the tracks they wrote, the guy had a heck of an imagination. The way he describes things, well see. Elliott White Springs wanted to be a writer. It was narnt a lot of them wrote about their experiences. So certain thing, obsessions, this is mcmanic in a word. Im getting ahead of myself but i cant resist. He was obsessed with going down in flames. That is just how he went down. Anyway, so, a lot of these things came too late in the game to be of any structural use to help people during the war, but they realized that the other thing is ill just get to that slide. So this is ted parsons. If a man is visibly scarred or not, it can leaf a visible car. If he has a sedative and sometimes it goes screw and and begged for more like dope. Or gets the wind up and comes completely unstuck. The wind up is becoming panics. That is him with his training helm helmet. He was advocating control. He said without it we would all be in the loony bin. The doctors are saying no, dont do it. Doctors had never been in combat. None of them had flown in combat. They were just observing after effects of what happened. People were not prepared for the epic amount of casualties that were incured. You can see various types of hospitals, resting stations, nervous stations. There was a station not yet diagnosed nervous station. If you were mildly freaked out but they didnt know what was wrong you went to one of those and you endured a period of observations to figure out what was wrong with you. These hospitals and rest stations popped up like mushrooms all over the French Country side. There was an ref hospital there and he just mentioned like old schools, gymnasiums, any structure that they could coop they would. It is fascinating, old hospitals of world war one. I was on it because i was trying to find some research, but it talks about the structures that were coopted. If school was out in the summer we have that school for three months . Great, well make it a hospital. They just had no way they were not prepared for the amount of casualties that were incured. And they were equally unprepared. At the end of the war there was a number of tracks the aviation psychiatry to get a handle on what they learned. A lot of it is abstract. Were going to get to our first case study. I dont know if anyone read the diary of an unknown aviator. He attributed it to his close friend. Elliott wanted the proceeds to go to his family. He denied authoring it. It is a time line that doesnt work. He died early in the war and the book goes deeper into the war. So anyway, lets talk about elliot, a fascinating person, bottom line he had a very contentious relationship with his father. He saw his buy biological