Transcripts For CSPAN3 Psychological Impact On World War I Pilots 20240713

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 mother. He never bonded with his stop mom, lena into what did he do . He shipped them off to schools, boarding schools, military schools, he was deprived of any loving nurturing child as a bow. And and he wanted to be a writer. It was one of his contemporaries. They were probably crossing the campus together, he took classes in writing, fix writing, journalism, and they said you stink, and he said no, i want to be a writer. As you will see this was actually a key piece in him healing himself. So well get to that in a bit. He wanted to fly, caught up in the wave of excitement over flying. It was the most exciting and intoxicating thing that you can imagine. As im starting to mention, lack of a decent home life increased the bond. You talk about the front line comradery. This amplified that. So he experienced genuine war neurosis. The three mus ka tiers, they were inseparable. And when grider was killed, he blamed himself. He was flying along, he could see him, and he looked back and he was gone. He held out hope that he was safe. He was captured and he was clearly traumatized over that loss. He bonded to deeply with the two men, as i mentioned a lack of any meanleful family life. It allowed him to finish the story the way that he wanted it to. That is kind of a neat thing when you think about it. A lot of things go wrong in your life and you can write a story. And you can finish it the way you want. It is kind of neat. That was a mental construct that hi dropped and this book was a big, big piece in his healing. So here is a letter to his step mom and you can, you know, the letters that he sent to his father and step mom, say ig theyre toxic or i pass out from irritation at the doings of the springs family on the homefront. Anyway, i hope my ghost haunts you and never gives you a moments peace. I could sleep but instead im writing you until time to go to my patrol. He wrote tons of these letters, he is just vending, talking about his father, you do this and that but you dont have time to write me a decent letter. To so it was the sum total for the family. He was roping fhoping for a hea emotion to fill the void that he never got. The letters took on the crazy morni importance for him. His father would share hit letters back state side. Look at what my son is doing, he shot down another hun, and he did not like that. Those letters are private for you it was their weird little connection and you see this with other flyers, too. So these letters that are all from springs that im quoting here and he makes a number of interesting observations. One of them is nerves. He is talking about real courage under fire. May or may not include recklessness. A man that rushes into a fight and then because handshake with his hand on the trigger. A man may be scared to death, but fear to him is like water on a ducks back. So he is talking about people he observed in combat. Some died, some got through it, some broke down, but the ones that excelled were this way, a special breed, okay . This is interesting, this is a comm commonality. They were scared, sure, fear was a friend to them and they were able to get through it and perform, okay . This is probably his most prominent quote. He is talking about the best part of himself. No matter where i go or what i do the best part will remain there i lived a life, a long lifetime, there lie my companions. And the memly always be a sere. That is summing up this war experience. That is the other thing that you find he was like an adrenaline junky for today. It was the most exhilarating, intoxicating, frightening Game Changing experience and these people were young. This is the notion of the ambitionest and the best part of himself he left there at the front. So think about that if you have not read it, it is a good read, quick read. It paints a very good picture of what it was like. He was an american flying with england and he also commented on this notion of british stoicism. They were very sensitive, they were outwardly stoic and quick to laugh. They were sensitive. He basically continue ed d to b. He predicts great things in mental hiygiene. He say thats a genuine war neurosis but i didnt have the con freet foundation under me to prevent its return. It was a ka thardcathardic rele. And in the book, war birds is a synthetic version of his letters. He talks about he is trying to do griders voice, but you can tell it is really springs. This is him after the war. After the war after he he is a real character, you have to know. You read his letters and you just theyre filled with very colorful metaphors and t is very funny. He barnstormed and he wanted to continue flying. He was a ladys man, he would show up to a party with a woman and a five gallon jug of liquor. So he slid into the role that his father wanted him to, he took over the family business. He finally did this in 1931 and he did a good job with it. He apparently went after text tile production like he went after combat flying. He set up a loom so he could work out better production techniques to make fabric. He was very good to his workers. He gave them very good treatment in terms of wages and compensation. And he had a very provocative Marketing Campaign for his textiles, and this is an example of one of his posters here. You see a lot of scantily clad women wearing his cotton. He has tshirts with the posters on it. He also served in world war ii. If youre down south, the Elliott White springs hot was on the list of restored places. So you can visit where he lived if you want. So he survived the war and the war birds was one of the first earliest examples of art therapy. It is now so common with ptsd suffere sufferers. They could distance themselves from it, read what they wrote, and process it. I dont believe in closure anyway, they just lived with it and thats what they did. So bill lambert, a very different person. He was born in ohio. He was a chemist and he joined the royal flying core. It was a British Scout plane. He had 17 victories, and he adopted someone like springs, the repression of trauma. It was encouraged and it compounded their suffering. Well get a better example of that. But for him it was like a ticking time bomb, okay . He did a very good job kind of he teases he is not explicit like some of the other fliers, but he says the pirds coming through the air as easy as i could walk on the ground. Little did i then know that within in few years i would achieve the same, but my mission would not be for food, it would be to glide down and kill my food. No i should be gliding down to kill my fellow man. Not manifest yet but is thinking about it, that maybe this is not such a great thing. So one thing that many of these pilots, First World War pilots did and were obsessive about was working on their aircraft. They figured with so many things that could go wrong and the context of combat itself being so fluid, dynamic sbun predictable, the one thing they could control was their aircraft and their own flying. We see this with people like vernon voss, various other german pilots who felt if they flew well enough and maintained their aircraft perfectly, they would be immune from getting shot down. This is another way they help sort of process. Hes talking about his 1084 he calls it, the number on the tail, if an airplane didnt respond instantly and transmit its every vibration to me we never became a successful flying unit. Extension of the pilot, right . I felt i should know and feel every whim, mood and temperament of a plane. I guess it drove my a. M. S crazy but 1084 was as near perfect as we could make her. This may sound crazy but it was the way i felt. Not all pilots but the better pilots did. My goodness, people said that they would rather have a secondhand plane than a brand new one because he had made it like a finely tuned violin. When it came out of the factory, this was slack, this was too tight. Each pilot has their quirks that they like to have their plane be tuned a certain way. Especially these aircraft. My goodness, they were so strong but delicate at the same time. Built of spruce and plywood and covered in linen, braced with wire. The engines were finnicky. The guns were even more finnicky. They would often jam. That lewis gun held 46 rounds. To change the drum, you had to pull a release and it would sly down and that drum would want to whip off in the slip screen and you would have to get it off, man handle another one against the air flow, get it on there, lock it just to reload. Its not like warfare today by any stretch of the imagination. Guns jammed all the time. Anyway, working on your plane was one thing you could do to kind of even the odds. Another thing you see a lot with these pilots i wrote an airline in space magazine about this, was superstition. Pilots would red baron, prime example. Painted his plane red so people would recognize him. The advocate of alcohol, get this, he goes to paris, sees a gypsy fortune teller and says my luck is running out. What am i going to do . She gives him a stuffed black cat and says put this on your airplane. It will bring you luck. He said really . Yep, just do it. So he does. He straps it to his airplane and sees sawdust coming out of the stuff cat and he claims the cat took a bullet for him, that if the cat hadnt been there, he would have gotten shot in the head. He wouldnt fly until he got another stuffed black cat. In his book, he mentions that. This idea of superstition, what can i do . One had a lucky jacket. They all had these things they thought would bring them luck. Its just another interesting psychological construct to kind of even the odds. You saw people, friends falling in flames around you almost every day. People you were sitting with at breakfast werent there at the end of the day. How do you deal with that . Its tough. So, okay. This is a new phenomenon that also evolved during the war, the idea of strafing. Most pilots despiced doing this. They thought it was especially grizzly work. La lambert was talking about that. Those poor devils were helpless. What a slaughter it would be. They were human beings and i wondered could i do it . I went in firing both guns. One poor devil tried to pull a piece of sheet metal over his body, some lay flat, some crouched with faces looking up at me. One big fellow defiantly soot up. How i hate this had aspect of our work. Guess i was just not made for it. Role in Ground Support as tanks, battle of cambray, war started to become more mobile. Aircraft became a support, just like in the Second World War, with true movements. This was part of the job. The only person that liked strafing was the red baron. He had no problem doing that. He was kind of bizarre that way. He really liked to kill things. Thats actually, incidentally, a picture, great expression. Alluding to the fatigue that was weighing on every pilot in the war. Every pilot in the squadron were about shot. Most had been doing this work for three weeks. Talking about strafing, bombing air support. Youre close to the troops. No one complained but one had only to look in the face of a pilot to watch his actions. The story was there. During the fighting of previous days, they had no time to think about it, but 24 hours later, it was a different story. This happens, too. You see this a lot, pilots talking about their role. Theyre flying, because so much is going on, but when they get on the ground and start to think about it, it would affect next days performance because they were kind of loath to get in the air and do it all over again. So like a light switch turning off, lambert landed in no mans land, germans started shelling it. He was so enamored of that aircraft, he was under fire, ran in no mans land, pulled the clock off the Instrument Panel and want aid souvenir. Brought it back with him. He survived the war. It made it into his office after the war, one piece of 1084 that he worked so lovingly on that he saved. He watched the germans blow it up and it gutted him. This is interesting. This is him talking about almost everything from that day until about october 1st, 1918 is a blank. Certain incidents i remember dimly. I vaguely remember the raid and seeing fires. My recollection is of watching someone loading my gear into a tender. Later i was swimming with another pilot on a long, white sandy beach. A woman in nurses uniform joined us and asked if we would like to go to a large building on a cliff top. She told us it was the resort hotel at wimereaux and had been converted into a hospital. Later i was in a london hospital, evidently for the whole of september. Hes suppressing the war trauma until his psyche could take it no longer and he had a meltdown, right . He just collapsed. Many of these resort towns were converted to. It was restful, it was quiet, away from the fighting. A number of pilots circulated through there with war trauma. Lsz john mccrays funeral, interesting sidebar at wimereaux. He was still convalescing when the war ended, lambert was. He had 18 victories. He was a highscoring ace, shot down a lot. Air victories, not things he blew up on the ground. Like others he became a bannerstormer in ironton and worked as an engineer. He invented a pipe rest for a smokers chin. Ive not been able to find a picture of this weird device. Apparently you could put a pipe in your mouth and it would rest on your chin and you wouldnt have to worry about holding it. Go figure. Maybe an offshoot of his war trauma. He joined the u. S. Air force, Army Air Corps in world war ii and retired as a lieutenant colonel. Wrote combat report, another great book. Tess a very good read and reads quickly in 1973. Prize possession, aside from his clock from 1084 was a piece of the red barons triplane, a piece of the canvas covering. Thats a picture of him in his rfc or raf uniform and as a bannerstormer here. Most of these guys felt like they wanted to keep their hand in flying after the war. Bannerstorming was a natural way and very good way to recover from combat flying because it was purely for enjoyment and getting people excited about flying. Actually, two years ago, i was out in dayton, ohio, filming for the documentary film that crystal mentioned at the beginning of the talk, which is almost done, by the way. Its going to be premiering november 9th at Wright Patterson air force base if youre in the neighborhood. Anyway, i met a fellow out there who was a drone pilot in one of the gulf wars and suffered from nerosis and doing that. He was doing it by Remote Control and had a meltdown based on what he was doing. So he told me that hes a bannerstormer, actually, in ohio, modern bannerstormer. I said so drone pilot to bannerstormer, tell me that story. He said this helps me heal from being a drone pilot, get people excited about flying in its purest form and helps me to heal. I thought it was interesting, sort of the return to basics. Roy brown. Roy brown was an interesting character, probably you recognize the name. He was the person who was credited with shooting down the red baron, okay . We learned later on it wasnt him at all. That probably would have made him feel a lot better, but he died before we knew that. He was actually hit by australian machine gunner on the ground that actually killed the red baron. At the time, excuse me, england, this was kind of a fabricated story, in my opinion. It wouldnt do for the red baron to be shot down by a mere machine gunner on the ground. It had to be by a british flyer. That would establish the hierarchy, better than the German Air Force because we shot down the red baron, one of our pilots did. This was a propaganda piece in my opinion. Anyway, like a lot of these other guys like William Lambert, mick manic and others, he grew up in a small town in canada. He was into sports. Many of the ais were athletically inclined. Parents were moderately successful merchants. The town in which he grew up, carlton place, was known for lumber and a foundry. There was pot belly stoves produced there. His parents had something to do with that. They were moderately successful, which enabled him to pay for the Wright School of flying in 1915 in dayton, which is where he learned to fly. He didnt have a very good time there. It was tough to get his wings because the planes kept falling apart, because they were so fragile. He had to have just the right flying conditions. He was there an inordinately long time. He joined the rnas and trained in the uk and showed early signs of anxiety over flying. He was already kind of had this on the brain before anything really started to crank up with him. Yeah, i just mentioned this, sorry. Got ahead of myself. And thats the Wright School in day t dayton. You can go to that site and see where it was. Beautiful small town in canada, carlton place. This slide is kind of hard to read but hes talking about training in england. This say day off for me. In fact, everyone, as it is raining and low clouds. I hope it keeps up for a week. This is the kind of weather everyone likes to see. There has not been much excitement the last few days but ive already had enough to last me the rest of my life. So he is already kind of over it. And the war hasnt cranked up for him yet. This is some pictures of a wrecked plane there, common occurrence with spads. Basically roy was showing very clear and pronounced signs of combat fatigue. He was in and out of hospitals throughout his career, sickly. High altitude, cold, people were complaining of ailments based on those elements and were sent to the hospital for it. Colishaw, another ace, hes talking about visiting roy brown. I remember aid handsome black haired square jawed pilot full of joy for flying. The man he found that afternoon was utterly different. There were gray hairs in his head, he lost 25 pounds and once sparkling eyes were now bloodshot. Brown admitted he had been living for more than a month on milk and brandy. He said he already had a breakdown and suffering from a severe ulcer. Collishaw was shocked and begged his friend not to fly any further missions but both men knew this was impossible. Today they would be taken off the line. Red baron was sent to training but wrecked his plane. Some people thought he was aeroneurotic at that point. Anybody that knows that aircraft knows its a dodgy aircraft. Its a finicky aircraft. In the hands of an expert its a Lethal Weapon but an average pilot, its a handful. This is the letter he wrote to his mother that wasnt supposed to see the light of day, talking about after he was shot after the red baron was shot down and he was credited with it, he was told that you did it although if you read his letters, he phrases it in such a way that i guess i shot him down. Im not sure. I guess i did but there was another pilot with me. Anyway here hes describing the sight of richthofen as i walked closer gave me a start. He appeared so small to me, so delicate. He looked so friendly. Blond silk soft hair like that of a child fell from his broad, high forehead. His face, particularly peaceful, had an expression of gentleness and goodness, of refinement. Suddenly i felt miserable, desperately unhappy. Feeling of shame, a kind of anger and i cursed the war. If i could, i would fwladly bring him back to life. I could no longer look him in the face. I went away. I did not feel like a victor. There was a lump in my throat. If he had been my dearest friend, i could not have felt greater sorrow. He shoots down the greatest german ace that germany has, curious about his victim and goes and sees him. Every time one of these pilots did this, it just did a number on him. So, you know, like i said, this was they did not have aviation psychiatry did not have the tools. I mean, william rivers and his theories were one pocket. Most of the treatment was skewed toward, like i said, getting them back in the cockpits. Getting some rest and getting them back to the front line. They accepted this. They knew this. Nine days after this incident, brown checked himself into a hospital and said i cant do this anymore. So they basically reassigned him to a Training School in england. Thats where i mentioned that well, let me just cut to this. So this is an interesting quote. Its very difficult if you look through the british registers of hospitals to ascertain which ones were specifically for Naval Air Force or what became the raf at the end of the war personnel. Here brown describes this, number 24 raf General Hospital is on the hill close to hampstead heath, a park in london. They do a lot of Research Work here into different kinds of troubles which are peculiar to flying people. This is the aeroneurotic condition i mentioned earlier. Its purely for raf officers so they get lots of material to work on. Good idea to have a hospital like this as in an ordinary hospital they do not know how to treat the troubles of flying people. These are the things that e. W. Craig mentioned, high altitude, the obsessions, the various neurotic manifestations of what they were experiencing. You have to understand, nowadays pilots have well, you know this all types of safety devices, parachutes being chief among them. During the war, parachutes were frowned upon and thought people would chicken out and jump out of their cockpits so they werent going to give them parachutes. British high command said no, we will not issue parachutes because theyll lose their nerve, chicken out and jump out of their airplanes rather than go into combat. Late in the war germany allowed parachutes with their men because they needed every pilot that they could get as they were losing the war, they knew it, and didnt have enough trained pilots. Well get to an interesting quote about that. But anyway, brown, after his stint in this hospital, he was sent to a Training School in england, screwed that up and basically he was discharged and went back to canada. Left the raf, rfc, royal flying corps became the Royal Air Force by the end of the war. Became an accountant at a Small Grocery store in canada. He want ed to get away from all the excitement as he could. I cant think of a duller job than that. Founded a small airline, general Airways Limited and worked as editor of canadian aviation for a time. He tried to join the rcaf during world war ii and was refused. They said this is not a good fit for you. Instead he went left, entered politics, lost an election for the Ontario Legislature and after this he bought a small tract of land when he died of a heart attack. Sort of a very unglorious end for roy brown. Anyway, just another example. One of my favorites, how many people have seen the great waldo pepper . Okay, three, four. This guy was the prototype for the fictitious character in that movie. Its a great movie and parallels very closely udets life, a colorful one. Udet grew up in munich, which was a bustling hub of commerce, education, industry, of beer. It was just this dynamic, wonderful city. So very different upbringing from the other guys we built models, and attended the otto school of flying. It was a very early aircraft. And many of these early Aviation Companies that built aircraft also had flying schools because you cant build aircraft and it was a symbiotic thing. You could learn how to fly and build one of their planes. So anyway he joins up in 1915, lied about his age, was underage. He experienced a brief nervous breakdown early. He learned to fly the fokkere. Iii. It was the first aircraft that was synchronized, machine gun to fire through the propeller. Became a very potent weapon for a time. E. Iii was a very unstable aircraft as well. Learning to fly well was quite the thing, all right. So, yeah. Munich was just this, as i mentioned, bustling hub. Urban environment, not a rural one. He fared the best in terms of his psyche, until he didnt, in the Second World War. I dont know if anyone knows what happened to him but he committed suicide. Militarism and prussianism, nationalism was on the rise. They saw their influence waning in the european world and war was one way they thought would be a good way to bring their prestige back. Munich was the center of education at the time, such that most major universities, you had to speak german to keep up with the advances in germany. It was such a hot spot for education. Einstein, for example. Industrial power second only to the u. S. It was second to the u. S. Actually in steel production. Were talking about material that was available for aircraft construction during the First World War. Germany had two things going for it. They had steel and they had plywood. Ive written another book about german aircraft construction. Thats the only reason i mention it. Im not trying to plug another book. You look at the countries and what Raw Materials were available for them. Fo fokker, for example, capitalized, albatross, too, on both of these materials, plywood and steel. Anyway, anyway, that was the context in which a young ernest grew up. So you can see what a good remember i said imagination wasnt a good attribute for a combat pilot. You can already see that listen to this. Very soon he was so close i could see the observers head. He resembled great ferocious insect bent on destruction. The moment had now come to me to shoot in earnest. The horror had turn my blood to ice, taken the strength from my arms and numbed my brain. I sat passively in the cockpit staring idiotically. Suddenly they opened fire, bullets shot my fokker, which shot my glasses. You miserable coward, the engine seemed to say. And my only thought was thank god nobody saw it. This is his first brush with combat. He froze, right . Hes freaked out. Didnt have any problem shooting him but he had a problem shooting the french guy. Hes going through this early struggle about, you know, shooting another aircraft down. So here he is, continuing. Thats actually a replica built by a guy in german, flown in, i think, australia. Anyway, the moment had come. My heartbeat furiously and the joystick was damp. Fokker flew above the enemy squadron like a hawk, singling out its victim. The hawk followed but did not pounce. But hang on a second. Even as i hesitated i realized i should never have the courage to do so afterwards. This is an interesting passage. Other pilots talk about this defining moment. Its do it now or youre just going to be a coward for the rest of your life. In that case i would land, go to my room and in the morning pfalzer would have the task of writing my father there had been a fatal accident while i was cleaning my revolver. So he does this now or goes back to his barracks and blows his brains out. This is weighing heavily on him. Hes talking about breaking through that barrier. At the time the thought that those men were human beings never once occurred to me. At the time. It would later. I was only conscious of one sensation, victory, triumph. The iron band about my chest snapped. The blood cowersed freely through my veins. The tension was over. I had been blooded. This was the bloodlust many people have written about that is so intoxicating. Its the darker side of human passion, but it comes to the fore in wartime. This is that dichotomy between the horror and pleasures of war. So udet has punched through that barrier, shot somebody down and feels like he can be normal again, such as it is. Chivalry. This is talked about quite a bit in world war i. Its overdone for sure. Pick up the pace. Okay. So hes talking about this engagement and he points to this as one instance of chivalry that he believes, you know, basically. Lets see. Gradually i began to realize he was more than a match for me. For a while i completely forgot that he was my enemy for eight minutes, we had been flying around each other in circles. Suddenly he looped, flew back over my head. At that moment i relinquished hold of the stick, hammered with both hands of the machine gun. He had observed my actions and now knew that i was his, basically. Afterwards he dived away from the west. I skipped the most important line. Observed my actions, now that he knew i was his helpless victim. Then to my great surprise he raised his arm, and waved to me. Afterwards he dived away to the west. I flew home stupefied. I believe that guynemer gave proof that even in modern warfare there is still something left of the knightly chivalry of bygone days. Udet would prefer to believe this component was at work here that spared him. If you see in the movie, Robert Redford and the guy that plays ernest kessler, they have that moment where they salute each other and fly off. This is kind of ripped off from that. Hes talking about where hes over the whole blooded thing and seeing his victims as nothing but victims and is starting to obsess about this guy. I flew back, my skin soaked in perspiration. I made it a rule never to let myself worry about the men i shot down, but in this particular occasion i felt an insatiable desire to know who my opponent had been. He was shot through the head, by him. Also in the wallet were the picture of an elderly woman and a letter. It said dont be too reckless. Think of father and me. Somehow one had to try to get rid of the thought that a mother wept for every man one shot down. So, hes seeing this guy as, again, not a victim, a human being with a mother and father and thats causing him some trouble, big trouble. So this is another aspect you see bubbling to the fore in this First World War, binarism between the front line and home front, mutually exclusive. While i was home i seldom went into the city. What was there for me to do anyway . My friends were at the front. Many of them had been killed. I felt no particular desire to mix with strangers. We sat down to lunch. From time to time they questioned me, meaning his family, and i related only what i thought was good for them. Hes protecting them from the truth. I said nothing about my last duel with massdorp. I did not want to alarm my father and furthermore i felt some reluctance to speak. In any case i could not speak of a man whose death i had caused, a man whose bravery had won my respect. This transformation occurs. You see it in the writings, transformation occurred at the front line where these men became creatures of the war where life only made sense to them at the front. Life at home, friends, family, good times was like a foreign thing. The trchlation was complete, yeah. So hes talking about this girl hes infatuated with. He painted lo on many of his aircraft. Hes talking about how he has changed. We should be absolutely free from all restrictions and could live as freely as though we were on another planet. At first she laughed, meaning his girlfriend. Then her lips grew tight. But thats impossible. What would my parents have to say . Im sorry im afraid being at the front has made me forget the conventions. You mustnt be angry. We had become different men since being at the front. Things that considered important now seem of no account. Other things filled our life, without being able to express it in words. I had a sudden feeling that i wanted to rejoin my comrades at the front. Even being with his girlfriend, whom he loved actually, they were married for two years then divorced. He painted lo on every single one of his aircraft. He was obsessed with her. Hes talking about carpe diem mentality. You see people dying every day and takes it back home and says we should do whatever we want because i could be dead tomorrow. She says i cant do that. This is a whole other rub especially in germany with the front and the home life and ultimately at the end soldiers felt stabbed in the back, which led to fascism. Anyway, im getting way ahead of myself. After the treaty of versailles, after germany was forbidden to build aircraft and train pilots. We were in a depressed mood. They had thrown us out. This is basically at one of the outcomes of the treaty was that the military was well. Civilians blamed the military for losing the war. Theres that, too. They had thrown us out. A few of us had the remotest idea how we were going to settle down in civilian life. You know, said greim to me, one day if only we could fly again, take a look at all this mess from above it wouldnt be so bad. We sipped at our drinks and stared straight ahead. So, this is like i said, this is kind of what led to fa krc f the rise of the third reich. Fascism is basically using military tactics on politics. Hitler being a corporal in the First World War. So, after the war, udet was able to rebound, unlike some of the others. 62 confirmed victories, became a national hero. To be saved by a parachute this is a great story. In fokker d7. I dont know if youre familiar with aircraft but elevator control wires were shot through, had no pitch control. Fokker dies straight down. Im dead. I have no elevator control. I cant pull out of this dive. Im going to be a fence post in the ground. Then he remembers hes sitting on a parachute. Hes like, aha he unbuckles his seat belt, jumps out, pulls the rip cord. Canopy opens. Gets hooked on the tail of his fokker. Hes trailing his fokker down. He claims he grabbed the shrouds of his chute, unhooked himself from the tail and his parachute opened just 250 feet from the ground. I dont know if its true or not but thats how he lives on to tell the tale. He became a successful pilot. In hollywood before cgi and all the crazy stuff they do with computers in terms of imagery. This is where they needed stunt pilots. Ernest udet flew in these early aviation movies. It was a good job. It paid well. Second world war he served in the third reich, was in charge of stucha production. He put on quite a bit of weight. He had some breakdown where he felt that goering had betrayed him. He was his Squadron Leader after richtochen was killed. He wrote on the wall, paraphrasing, you betrayed me oh, great one and put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. I guess that was always a solution for him, when things werent going his way. Yeah. And he was the prototype for Ernst Kessler in the great waldo pepper. We have to get to mick mannock. This guy was the head and shoulders case study for repression. He was working class irish catholic. Unlike the other pilots he believed in working together, collectivist tactics. He wanted people to fly together. This would become the model for raf tactics in the Second World War. He was always about the good of the group, not the good of the one. He was introverted. He loved to read, loved animals. All the flags that would say an air surgeon would say, no, no, no, youre not a good combat pilot. Let put new logistics or something. Somewhat introverted, shy, but also gregarious, was obsessed with going down in flames. He talks about this all the time. Crackle, crackle. He talks about this all the time. Hated the notion of the ace and had a passive aggressive psychology. Grew up in canterbury, like many other pilots, quiet, small, rural town. Reading and drinking were the games. He was catholic so it was a small catholic area where he grew up. So again, like udet, hes talking about seeing one of his victims. My first few shots killed the pilot. Rather interesting also was a little black and tan dog dead in the observers seat. I felt exactly like a murderer. This is, you know, he wanted to see his victim. The fact that there was a dog there did a number on him. This is hard to read. I apologize for that. Hes talking about flying a mission and his courage all but have gone after the experience of this morning. One thing that mannock did a lot, like many of the british pilots true to form, very cheerful kind of black humor with the pilots and then he would go back to his tent or his room and he would wring his hands, grab his knees and rock and sob his eyes you know, cry himself to sleep basically. Its called keening. Its an irish thing apparently. This is the passive aggressive part. Outwardly everything is fine. Were going to kill the hun, red baron, all this stuff but then go back tos h his room and have breakdown. He was an accomplished violinist. This was before any of the modern like phones, tv. This is what you did with your time. You learned to play an instrument. Watching micks expressive face as he successfully accomplished the difficult double stopping passages in the caprice, i was amazed at the emotional splendor of his playing. Technique was required but there was something greater than that. Something no other violinist had ever conveyed to me. Mick had the soul of an idealist, one that could endure agonies. He told us this in his playing. He would play much like eric clapton, with his back to people. He would play in the corner, because he didnt want to he didnt want people to interfere with what he was doing, it was so personal. This is what he did. This is kind of the thumbnail sketch. Tall, lean figure with his deepset celtic eyes, modesty in dress and manner appealed to me like all the other peoples who came under his spell. He had a dominating personality that radiated to those around. It was obvious he was a born leader of men. He really cared about his men. He believed in group tactics, often break off an attack of his own to further his score to help a fledgeling pilot get a victory or bail him out of trouble. He was johnny on the spot. He would keep an eye on the whole squadron and help whoever need help the most. This is a really good thing. Theres a number of pilots that did this, talking about his flying, economy of movement. Never saw him looping or Wasting Energy or inching power in his mann manner. Better than average pilot. He really hated the germans, absolutely no chivalry with him at this time and the only good hun is a dead one. We fostered this blood thirsty attitude because it helped keep a war going atmosphere because it was the less tough types. Kill or be killed. We have to do this. This is the job. The kind of dogma helps them get through those patches. Thats why they were fostering that. Mannock went on a number of leaves when he felt stressed out or couldnt hack anymore, he would go on leave to england from france and would visit with the isles, jim isles and his wife, dear friends of his. Isles account of mannock, close to his death. Mannock had changed dramatic. Gone was the incessant wit. He would wring his hands together to conceal the shaking and twitching. He started to tremble violently. This grew into convulsive straining. Saliva and tears were running down his face. His collar and shirt front were soaked through. He smiled weakly at me and tried to make light of it. He would not talk about it at all. This is the problem. I felt helpless not being able to do anything. He was ashamed to let me see him in this condition but could not help it, however hard he tried. So right after this breakdown, he felt he could unburden himself with the eyles, they were such great friends. He couldnt do this with the squadron, except in private. He reached out and wanted this man to see what condition he was in and went back to france for a final time and then, of course, met his demise shortly before his final flight, hes talking about his idealism. This is an interesting passage. I dont believe the war and great push of things rare and superficial. Hes talking to a nun, couple of nuns that would have lunch with the squadron. Dont you see, my dear child, that strife, blood shed and physical exertion and mental anguish are all good, glorious, wonderfully beneficial things for the human race, just exactly the same as you and i experience when we are called upon by our sense of righteousness to resist some animal temptation . These boys out here are fighting are tempted at every moment of the day to run away from the gastly hun. These guys are terrified and want to run away yet they dont. They would rather die than do that and become stronger as people. Hes seeing this as a positive thing, the war, in spite of all thats going on with him personally and around him. Okay . He was, by the way many people were when the red baron was shot down, many people sent condolences to the german, red baron squadron. Sorry to hear richtochfen has fallen. Mannock was ecstatic. Hope the bastard burned all the way down. He couldnt be happier. Mannock was shot down in flames. Highscoring ace. Helping lieutenant donald c. Inglis from new zealand get his first victory. They shot down a twoseater and mick had a whole treatise that he developed and i didnt put in this presentation, things you should do to attack the enemy. He violated two of his basic rules, went down low over enemy lines, in machine gun range. Machine gunner hit the engine of his sc58 and inglis saw the flame burst and spread rapidly, plane went on its back and blew up. Poor mick, the bloody bastard shot my major down in flames. He would make jokes, black humor about going down in flames all the time. So on his brain. He couldnt repress it. He was so obsessed with it and it became his end. Were running out of time. Georges guynemer. All these people are interesting individuals. You think about the Second World War aces and how they seem to fit a type. First world war theres very distinct individuals, although there were commonalities. Guyne mechlt r was the unlikely ace you could imagine. He was slight, sickly, weak, thin. All the things you think of aces, athletic, robust, brave. Guyne mechlt r was like the black sheep. Had a privileged upbringing. He worked his way up. He became a master spad pilot and he had this very french quote, unless one has given all, one has given nothing. He lived that. And that actually was spelled his end because he was fried. He was in desperate need of rest but he felt that he couldnt do it and had to keep fighting. Compiegne, where he grew up, north of paris, place of coronations, treaty signing and elaborate royal fetes. His family was privileged. This is an interesting passage talking about frances connection to this man. Because he was of such unlikely kind of stock in terms of what you would think of an ace, france resonated with this guy because they could see themselves becoming an ace just as readily as guynemer did. This morning as soon as we reached the school we put his photograph up on the wall. For our moral lesson we learned by heart his last mention in the dispatches, four our writing lesson we wrote his name. And he was the subject for them. And finally we had to draw an airplane. We did not begin to think of him only after he was dead. Before he died in our school, every time he brought down an airplane, we were proud and happy. But when we heard he was dead, we were sad as if he was one of our family. We would remember him as we remember roland. I shall never forget him. For i shall remember that he died for france like my dear papa. This is a school buyboy writing about guynemer. He was made into a martyr for france. All of france loved him. He wasnt the highest scoring ace. Fonc was but he was pompous, arrogant and socially awkward whereas guynemer resonated with people. Before making use of them, guynemer was to touch with his hands those long white hands of the rich student now tanned and calloused, often coated with soot and grease. Every piece, every bolt and screw of these machines were to release him from his voluntary servitude. Basically he applied to be a pilot two or three times, was rejected. Just too weak. The guy cant even carry a rifle, lift a spoon to his mouth. But his dad had some juice, had some pull. His dad said cant you find something for him to do . Take him into the air corps, clean up trash or something. He was given the crappiest job in the squadron for a long time, shlepping pans of grease around, cleaning off airplanes. Every awful job he did it so he could learn to fly and be accepted as a military pilot. Humble beginnings. He crashed a bunch of planes. Some found, in a sense, very funny because this child came among men almost did not open his mouth, did not have an excellent reputation. Guynemer took up a plane with the same result, crashed it. This perseverance was becoming alarming. We could not allow this neophyte to demolish all the squadrons planes. This boy weighed only 48 kilograms, was a real bundle of nerves and feeling ridiculed decided to confess his fears to the man. You did not know me but if you did, you know i would love to do the things right. Thats the french paraphrasing. Brocard, the big guy on the right. He conceded and says you can fly another play but if you dont learn to fly in two weeks, he would be washed out. Because he was crashing all the planes. From the most unlikely beginnings, put his mind to it and mastered the craft. Became a master spad pilot. Talking about this notion of nerves. Like udet, this is how i mastered my nerve, little sister, mine are well tamed and i am now master. The boc hechlt shot 500 rounds at me as i maneuvered. It was necessary i accept that. My life was decided that morning. Without facing up to it i would have chinged out. Basically setting himself up as a target and see if he could take it, if he would chicken out or not, and he didnt. All right. So guynemer without going into excesses about him, he became a very good spad pilot, fast stablegun platform, high speed, another shift in the war from turn fighters like the newports and albatross and triplanes to boom or zoom fokkers, spads where speed, altitude and fire power became important, as it would in the Second World War. Anyway, his former Flight Instructor invited him to dinner. And he achieved this cultlike demagogue in france. I invited my exstudent to dinner at the madeline. Upon his entry the public gave him an ovation. The orchestra stopped. It was almost impossible to dine, with an endless stream of guests asking for ought graphs on their menus or postcards. The ladies leaned over guynemer wanting to touch or graze against him, some kissed his uniform, his long row of medal ribbons. Thats bernard thierry. This is the beginning of his demise. He was tired. You look at pictures of him in the beginning to the end, its a world of difference. He seems much more comic, much more relaxed in the early photographs. Later photographs, his face is sunken, has that 5,000yard stare. He has had too much combat. He was really good but also became, as many of these aces, became a victim of their own success, right . Because he was always trying to keep his score going, increasing, increasing, increasing. It became an addiction. So he had some bad luck. He wasnt shooting anything down. Trying to overcome this bad luck it was a hard time for him but he would not give up like the skilled gambler tries to win by increase his gambling. So he was getting manic at this point. He was getting sloppy, making mistakes, pushing through, trying to get another victory. Clearly, he should have relaxed and taken some leave and sort of regrouped. So, this is an interesting passage. It talks about jacques mortain, i think, was his buy grapher. Talking about the ace and the air fighter. The public as a rule has a misconception about air fighting and combat pilots. They very easily imagine that we are way up there, relaxed, directing dog fights. I cannot verbally express the enervation i feel when hearing these misconceptions directed at me in form of compliments to which im compelled to grin and bear it. I would like to shout, but my poor fellow, you ought not to speak about this subject for you know nothing whatever about it. If i responded like this, no one would think of honoring my sincerity. Instead everyone would think i was rude, and thats the reason i remain quiet. Some tell me its better not to explain how flyers conduct their business anyway dogfight f the layman knew what we know, he would possibly no longer would admire us. This is the end of the war. This is when tactics had become somewhat codified in terms of shooting aircraft down. Eddie richenbacher referred to this as scientific murder. Everything had been worked out in a formula since. It was no longer glamorous or romantic. It was a business. It was something that you followed a certain procedure, certain tactics and you werent guaranteed success but it certainly was higher than it was in the beginning of the war. So, jacques mortain has this about guynemer. I lived near him with the secret sorrow some day the idea would slay its container. Its exactly what happened. He wouldnt quit. Unless one has given all one has given nothing, right . It was this trap for him. And his final flight was september 11th, 1917. We dont really know precisely how he was killed but likely shot down by a twoseater. And what you do with a twoseater, if you were engaging it, you would fly under and below. Twoseater. Heres your fighter. Gunner cant see it. He goes over here. Gunner shot him in the head, killed him. Anyway, conclusions about air fighting. Context, upbringing, copious examples of that. Faceless enemy, brutalization of the body and psyche. That was coined in the First World War, talking about how human body was torn apart by artillery rounds. It was brutalized and how hospitals and medical staff, et cetera, had to come to grips with this. It was the most awful thing they had ever seen certainly, at least since the civil war, american civil war. Shell shock. Inadequate label for combat trauma. Aeroneurosis was another inadequate label for the trauma. And most importantly, men had emotional capital in terms of what they could endure. Like i said, it had medical practices involved sufficiently, many of these people might have survived or experienced less trauma. When they confronted their victims and embraced their humanity, they suffered grievously. Thats true, every single one of them when they saw their victims, it was too much for them. Good quotes about this experience by various pilots. Arthur gould lee. To those of us who were to pass safely through this strife and bloodshed would be affected by it all the rest of our lives. And although maybe id not matched up in achievement with the best i was there with them. It was my crowded hour of glorious life. Hes talking about in the summer of his life, doing this most intoxicating, terrifying thing and hes not the best pilot but hes with the best pilots, engaged in this incredibly lifechanging, transformative experience. This quote by Elliott White springs, no matter where i go, what i do, the best part will always remain between zeebrugge and armentieres and in front of cambrai. There i lived a long lifetime, there lie my companions and many adversaries. That was a good one. And another one, filled with a heavy sense of loneliness. Although i had not been killed something in me had. Something had gone out of me. It was buried, would always be buried in 100 cemeteries in france and england along with the companions of my youth that died that our country might live. Debatable point of whether the country was really ever in danger during this slaughter. Thats how he chooses to remember it. Thats the end. So, are there questions . Yes, sir . I have a couple of questions today. Okay. Sure. Do you feel that the barnstorming of these pilots after the war was one way of almost trying to commit suicide . So the question is, do i feel if barnstorming of these pilots after the war was a way to commit suicide . I dont know. I dont know. Ive heard positive more the positive end of the spectrum, a way to get back to the purity of flying before it was corrupted by the wartime experience. Ive heard that. But there probably was an element of reckless danger that appealed to them, that they missed from the war experience, you know, the intoxication of combat. Barnstorming was dangerous, especially as the stunts evolved. So, yeah, there may have been some of that, to be fair. And second point, this is a comment. Its just a shame its taken 85, 90 years to realize post Traumatic Stress. Its taken 85 to 90 years to realize post Traumatic Stress syndrome. Thats true. For this book i talked to doctors at Wright Patterson air force base in the medical department and they sent me one of the doctors sent me a power point that he presented last conference in new york city, talk about ptsd, and nothing has changed. Its the same stuff that theyre struggling with now that they struggled with then. Its just different label, different context. We evolved the hardware, but the same both desires and horrors are still with us. Yeah. Other questions . Yes, sir . The irish guy who was mick Motor Vehicle mannock . His hatred for the hunt, i just wonder as you were speaking whether the fact that he come from an island, okay, where he is very vulnerable, okay, just like the brits felt that the germans would wanting to go back to the states, they had a different opinion. Yeah. Safety of the states and the distance to keep them could be. Yeah. So he was commenting that the fact that mcmanic lived on an island, england, closer to germany. Germany could easily invade in the Second World War operation sea lion. It was at a factor that contributed to his hatred of germans. Whereas springs, coming from the u. S. , u. S. Isolationism didnt have that problem because of the oceans that surrounded it. Could be. Manic had a lot of frustrations about what was going on. I think he channelled that in, you know, into a genuine hatred of the enemy. He felt if he could kill enough of them he might survive the war and might be able to, you know i mean, you have to understand, he was an idealist. In germany, by the way, they conducted their affairs in the war early part of the war in germany or russia was first mobilized. And two pieces of Key Information that came in and out war is the sinking of the ship. And this colored perception, you know, u. S. And woodrow wilson, thats why we went to war is unrestricted submarine warfare. So this was germany did some really bad things. That didnt help Public Opinion about them. I mean, yeah, france saw basically saving france as a fight to save civilization. Germany was going to invade and ruin that and draconian rules and impressionism and mill millitarism took over. Nobody had much sympathy for the german plight. In the back . You made the point very well that british social interactions made it very difficult for the pilots to talk about what they were going through which was the wrong strategy for getting them better. Was there any society or any air force in world war i that did better than this . Im thinking, you know, austria and germany, say, with the legacy of Sigmund Freud or carl hume. Did they do any better . Thats a very good point. So hes asking with the british social interactions and ethos of oppression in terms of trauma, what they were feeling, were there any other countries that did a better job in terms of talking about what the men were going tlouchlthrough. I didnt see any you would think you would have a better psycho dynamic model in germany. But, no. I didnt had to get through that wall of oppressionism that kaiser, all of that top down sort of stuff. They needed every fighting man to win the war. And so there was not much sympathy for people. They were suffering. Udet was the most outspoken. You had had other people that thought heres another example of kind of what William Lambert went through. He felt if he flew well enough that a round would never hit his plane. When he found a hole in his plane, he would obsess about it for weeks. Udet is like there is a hole in his wing, hes going to obsess about this for two weeks and i have to sit through this, type of stuff. Pretty funny. Yeah. Germany didnt produce a tract on this tend of the war. At least not that ive seen. Whereas the u. S. Did which is comic. The medical manual is published in u. S. In 1919. I mean we basically trying to get come to grips with something we didnt know much about. The british tract which is quoted in here, he made he was actually the doctor that attended roy brown at number 24 General Hospital. And was one of his case studies. So what he writes about in that tract talks about browns problems, we presume, as well as many others. So thats more reliable. There is more patients that were actual flyers. The u. S. Didnt have many we came in 1917 and our definitions for air service were very rigid. Such that, i mean, the lafayette flying corps and the other group of american pilots that flew for france that had the most combat experience, most of those people were kicked out of the u. S. Air force even though they had the most experience. James norman hall was given prominent roles and ploromoted. But a lot of the guys that were good combat flyers were not good enough for u. S. Standards. Pretty funny. So anyway, im sorry. Im rambling. Other questions . Yes, sir . How did the incidences of the ptsd for the aviators compare against that for the soldiers in the trenches . So question is how did the instances of ptsd compare with that of the trenches soldiers in the trenches . Like i said, they applied labels to the various trauma like shell shock for troops, air aeron aeroneurotic for the pilots. When you think about the different exchanges on the ground, artillery, machine guns, fixed position fighting which characterized the first part of the war, hope sense of hopeless and devastation. Whereas in the air youre fighting oneonone. It was different. I think i think they were very different animals in terms of what they encountered. You know, air neurosis is not just combat, its anything to do with flying. People that are dizzy, who are, you know, having issues with motion sickness, with altitude. So the you know, roy brown mentions the peculiar troubles of pl of flying people which means they were specific. And they were. If you went too high, you got nauseous and your ears bled. Doctors said youre not fit for flying because your eardrums are ruptured. You cant fly. He said come on. He said cant you just certify me for flight . I have to go back and join my buddies . The doctor after so much arm bending, he signed off on him. He should not have been allowed to fly. Stuff like that. Does that answer your question . Somewhat . I guess a little bit. I mean, i can see an analogy on the ground in terms of the getting close to your victim, say, from the standpoint of a trench sniper who is picking off guys. Sure. They may be a mile away. He can see them up close. Sure. Plus, you have epic amounts of carnage around you. Dead horses. You have pieces of people all around you. Blown to bits. The brutalization i mentioned. Whereas in it the air, its a very different type of death. Basically before, you know, end of the war in parachutes, you go down in flames or jump out and fall to your death. Of course, the french were issued what was called the french parachute which is a pistol under the seat. If you didnt want either one of those, you go. Right . Third option. Yeah. So, yeah, the different animals altogether. You saw this thing fall apart and disintegrate and gone. You landed, went to dinner, went to bed and did the same thing the next day. In the trenches, your buddy is gone and there is a hole and part of his hand. Its very different. And, yeah, perhaps more traumatic on the ground. Perhaps not. I dont know. Yes, maam . Just logistics of you were talking about they went back to see victim who they shot down. They would have to land in enemy territory. They had a camera. How does this work . They didnt have a crew to get back up . Logistics of how did they see their victim . How did they did they land, did they have a cram . H camera . How did they do this . They were definitely on their lines like when the red baron was shot down. Very close to the australian machine gun placement. So the australians took his plane, thats how they put the body in the tent. And thats how brown was able to come visit because it was in friendly territory. You only had gas for two hours, basically. And kas tocastor oil if you wer running a rotary plane. So, you know, you want to post them close to the front so that approximately and take a car to get there to see these victims. One more question. Nope. All right. Well, thank you very much. Very good. Tonight on American History tv beginning at 8 00 eastern, the cspan cities tour explores the american story with a look at the Great Depression era. Hear stories and visit places around the nation related to this historic economic down turn. Thats followed by cities tour stops if stops in chapel hill, north carolina, a carolina, amarillo texas and college station, texas. Watch on cspan3. Watch cspan for the rescheduled spacex crew dragon launch on saturday at 3 22 p. M. Eastern. Our coverage begins at 11 00 a. M. Eastern leading up to the launch and post launch activities. We also have live coverage of the crew dragon docking with the International Space station on sunday, may 31st, at 10 20 a. M. In his new book, talking to strangers, author Malcolm Gladwell details why he thinks people make inaccurate judgements about people they dont know. I dont have to step out step out of the car. Im going to drag you out of here. Youre going to drag me out of my own car . Get out of the car shes impresident ed fisoned resisting arrest and then she kills herself in the cell. But the whole that exchange that we saw which, by the way, goes on and on and on. We only saw a small snip it of it, that was the kind of when i first saw that online, that was when i realized what i wanted to write about. Because if you break that exchange down, moment by moment, you see multiple failures of understanding of empathy, of a million things. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events, from the president ial primaries through the impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. 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