"Combat Days" in WW1 and 2 vs. today

[1feral1]

I think combat has changed and become more impersonal.

I think it might be easier to be brave for a few hours than being threatened for long periods of time.

In response to your first sentance quoted. Its a very personal thing. VERY personal!

In response to your second sentance quoted, define long periods of time, and what experience do you base this on?

I've been in this mess just shy of 7 months, the longest deployment in history for Australian troops in Iraq. No let up, 7 days a week (a small break/escape for a bit not long after I got here), exposed to the violence 24 hrs a day.

In my going on 32 years of combined service in Canada and now Australia, this time spent in Baghdad and surrounding areas has been the most exciting, challenging time in my life, and also the most terrifying.

As for being brave, I am not brave, at times perhaps maybe stupid, for I have volunteered for things, but not brave. We have all walked the edge of a straight razor here, and we've been lucky. Its called being there for each other and standing one's ground for what one believes is right. Thats how I see it anyways. One is compelled to go that extra bit, driven from some wierd internal force from within one's mind. If I did not listen to this 'force', I would have problems living with myself. I leave this war feeling quite proud of my Unit's service here, and a job well done for us all.

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I do NOT think it is correct. However, should you ever have the chance to see some active service, just be careful what you wish for, because at times its far from pleasant.

Hey HoM, thanks for your words, and it relaxes me a bit to know that you know exactly what I am talking about. Ya, we are not alone.

I am going home soon, and I can't wait.

Cheers from Hell City,


Wes

 

[reccecrewman]

As for being brave, I am not brave, at times perhaps maybe stupid, for I have volunteered for things, but not brave

Typical answer from a professional soldier............. Well, I'm going to go ahead and say it Wes. You and every other allied serviceman/woman who have had the guts to step foot in Iraq are brave.  Your comment there is very typical of a professional who doesn't want to be seen as puffing up his chest.  You are humble, go-about-the-business of getting it done, noble........... and brave.

Godspeed in getting home to your lovely wife safe.

 

[FascistLibertarian]

I am really and truly sorry to anyone and everyone I offended.
I was not trying to make a comparison from ww1 or 2 to today or anything of the sort.  I think the Great War was the war that was really radically different from the wars before it.
Of course every individual’s experiences and reactions are going to be different. Warfare has always caused psychological issues I am sure even in Ancient times.
My point was that it is probably harder for the average person to be in a stressful situation for a long period of time than a short period of time.  This was based mostly on my knowledge WW1 compared to earlier British wars which had far fewer psychological causalities.  (just explaining my thinking not trying to turn this into an argument)
I have a tremendous amount of respect for our soldiers who put themselves in a dangerous situation and by no means sought to downplay anything they do.
I did not mean to cause a controversy and I once again apologize.

 

[Michael OLeary]

I am really and truly sorry to anyone and everyone I offended.
I was not trying to make a comparison from ww1 or 2 to today or anything of the sort.  I think the Great War was the war that was really radically different from the wars before it.
Of course every individual’s experiences and reactions are going to be different. Warfare has always caused psychological issues I am sure even in Ancient times.
My point was that it is probably harder for the average person to be in a stressful situation for a long period of time than a short period of time.  This was based mostly on my knowledge WW1 compared to earlier British wars which had far fewer psychological causalities.  (just explaining my thinking not trying to turn this into an argument)
I have a tremendous amount of respect for our soldiers who put themselves in a dangerous situation and by no means sought to downplay anything they do.
I did not mean to cause a controversy and I once again apologize.

Why don't you start by explaining exactly what experience/research/credentials you have, so that your remarks can be put into context.

 

[Long in the tooth]

If I may add a personal note, what we are fighting now is quite different from WW 1 or 2.  My Grandfather was wounded three times in WW1.  My Father's Bn suffered over 100% casualties (600 wounded, 400 dead) in WW2.  In addition, after being wounded he stayed in action.  They were there for 'the duration' against the most capable troops the world had ever seen (WW1 Germans cost the allies 2.5 casualties for each of theirs, WW2 up to 6:1, never less than 2:1).

Not to minimize our troops efforts, but 1 casualty today mandates a state funeral.  Our troops are now some of the most professional, best trained and best lead that we have ever deployed.  Our intelligence is excellent.  And when they deploy they have an end date.

My father fought years just to get $50/month for shrapnel wounds just an inch from his spine.  Our benefits are much better.

 

[FascistLibertarian]

There seems to be two issues people have with me here, my statements about this and also if I should be making these statements.

This is in regards to the contentions I have made (the less important part)
I hope people find this a bit interesting…
Academic information on PTSD in ww1:
The first case of shell shock described in a British medical journal was by Charles Myers in Feb 1915
http://bms.brown.edu/HistoryofPsychiatry/Myers.html
I am not aware of other cases described in earlier British wars, but there may have been. It just was not as much as issue because less people had PTSD.

In ww1 WHR Rivers wrote one of his most famous papers On the Repression of War Experience
It can be found below
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/rivers.htm
This is one of the first good examinations of shell shock and how to deal with it.
Basically the idea is that they should talk about what occurred with people who have experienced similar trauma rather than repressing it.
High levels of anger with no way to express them will cause anyone problems.

Before ww1 symptoms were considered "cannon fatigue" "Battle fatigue" "nerves" etc
The problem was in ww1 men started breaking down who were known to be a proven courage, so the answer could no longer be that these men were "cowards".

From Cataclysm: the First World War as Political Tragedy by David Stevenson pp 169-70
"Post-traumatic stress disorder, to give its modern name to a condition labeled 'shell shock' in the English-speaking countries, had doubtlessly existed in earlier conflicts, but had not been diagnosed as such. It was exacerbated by the special conditions of static warfare in which soldiers endured repeated bombardments in confined spaces with little control over their fate, and lived day after day in close proximity to their comrades' decomposing remains. In the mobile fighting of 1914 and 1918 its incidence diminished"
Only after the Somme did the UK accept it was psychological.
200,000 cases in Germany 80,000 cases in UK of which 87% were returned to duty in a month

Here is a ww2 account by Lewis Jeeble "A Worm's Eye View: The 1/4th KOYLI in Normandy" in Canadian Military History Spring 1994 Vol 3 No 1 pp92
"The battlefield is empty. One sees few live, uncaptured enemies"
In his account he talks about "The Anatomy of Courage" by Lord Moran which makes the claim that everyone has a reservoir of courage, small to large, and when that is gone your times up.

From Abnormal Psychology 2nd Canadian Ed Gerald Davison etc all 2005 John Wiley & sons Canada
pp185-6 Canadian Perspectives: PTSD in Canadian Veterans and Peacekeepers
In WW1 10% of Canadian causalities were “nervous and mental cases” (a very broad term)
Canadians in Vietnam = 65.4% in study of 164 veterans around 1990.
Dieppe = 37% of people with 43.4% of POW’s and 29.9% of non-POW’s had PTSD in 1992 (50 years on, 276 sample). Only 5.4% were getting govt assistance for this!
For Hong Kong I would estimate a rate of near 100% for survivors based mostly on my reading/listening to various accounts (their fight with the government is another example of Canada not doing enough in time).

I am not claiming I agree with all of this but it’s my "research".
Our knowledge about PTSD has been increasing since the Great War and will only continue to do so.

As to my credentials I have a history degree with a psyc minor and a slight understanding of the DSM, nothing really to special and I am not claiming to be any kind of expert.

I am very interested in the accounts here and genuinely meant no disrespect, my only point was that warfare has changed and the situations vary (and anyone is free to disagree).

Now for the more important part:
I have never had PTSD like symptoms nor been in a situation where it was likely to develop.  It was not at all my intention of anger anyone, ESPICALLY those who have been through combat.  Many of my family members have been and I have a great respect for it and comparing how traumatic events are to different individuals and among different situations is like comparing apples and oranges, not very helpful and also offensive. 
I have not been as respectful as I should have been and as an amateur historian I should have kept my views to myself as they are academic/armchair and probably not appropriate for this thread which is dealing with actual people and their very real experiences.
Dealing with PTSD that develops among Canadians who are serving their country is something which I take very seriously and have much sympathy for.
I apologize.

 

[reccecrewman]

I think the Great War was the war that was really radically different from the wars before it.

Even with this statement F.L, you are showing lack of knowledge to some degree.  The U.S Civil War was technically the war that brought mass butchery into it's own.  The Great War merely put it onto the world stage. 

The American Civil war showed the advent of everything the Great War was, only on a less murderous scale. With a death toll of over 600,000, it was in the American civil war that the quick firing magazine loader made it's grand debut as the infantryman weapon of choice, machine guns, (albeit rather crude ones) aerial reconnaissance, telegraph service for quick communication, railroads used for rapid troop deployment and trenching came into their own as an SOP......... casualty lists in the thousands after a battle and photographs from the front showing people back home images of the horrors of war.  The list goes on and on, but your comment about the Great War being "radically different" from the wars before it is not technically true. (At least in my opinion - you may disagee.  )

Regards

 

[3rd Herd]

Even with this statement F.L, you are showing lack of knowledge to some degree.  The U.S Civil War was technically the war that brought mass butchery into it's own. 

And it's delivery into everyones household was courtesy of James Brady and his band of roving photographers. An excellent site on him is "Pictures of the Civil War", http://www.archives.gov/research/civil-war/photos/

 

[Michael OLeary]

The U.S Civil War was technically the war that brought mass butchery into it's own.  The Great War merely put it onto the world stage. 

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 should also be recalled for the scale of forces and casualties on each side, in part because of the influences of maturing technological developments versus the employment of massed forces.

Russian Empire - 500,000 Soldiers (24,844 killed; 146,519 wounded; 59,218 POW)
Japanese Empire - 400,000 Soldiers (47,387 killed; 173,425 wounded)
Plus unknown numbers of Chinese civilian casiualties.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War)

This war, unfortunately, went largely unnoticed by western military scholars and did not appear to provide much in the way of extrapolation of new ways to wage warfare leading into the Great War.

 

[3rd Herd]

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 should also be recalled for the scale of forces and casualties on each side, in part because of the influences of maturing technological developments versus the employment of massed forces.

This war, unfortunately, went largely unnoticed by western military scholars and did not appear to provide much in the way of extrapolation of new ways to wage warfare leading into the Great War.

"U.S. Army officers acted as observers during the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. During the latter, the percentage of soldiers dying of their wounds was technically the lowest of all nineteenth- and twentieth-century conflicts, until the low American loss rate of World War II, largely because the soldiers of both sides frequently died before they could be moved to an aid station and officially counted as "wounded." Nine Army officers, including John F. Morrison, Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas), Charles Lynch of the Medical Department, and John J. Pershing, were distributed among several Japanese field armies and the Imperial General Staff in Tokyo. These men closely examined every aspect of Japanese operations, and later produced the five-volume Reports of Military Observers Attached to the Armies in Manchuria During the Russo-Japanese War, as well as numerous articles and lectures."

Source: Greenwood, John T. "The U.S. Army Military Observers with the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)," Army History, Winter 1996, (pg.4-5.)

Edit to Add:

"Over 80 observers in all were despatched by the armed forces of 15 nations to report on the conflict, of which more than one third consisted of British officers, many of them with considerable experience of colonial campaigning. On the Japanese side, the British military attachés enjoyed not only the advantage of numerical superiority, but also benefited considerably from the special relationship with the Japanese military as a result of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. Consequently, British officers often received information which was withheld from the other foreign observers."

Source: THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR: Reports from Officers Attached to the Japanese Forces in the Field (London, 1905-6)
http://www.ganesha-publishing.com/russo_jap.htm

 

[Michael OLeary]

Just because a lengthy report was produced doesn't mean Lessons Learned were effectively promulgated.

 

[Old Sweat]

Edit to Add:

"Over 80 observers in all were despatched by the armed forces of 15 nations to report on the conflict, of which more than one third consisted of British officers, many of them with considerable experience of colonial campaigning. On the Japanese side, the British military attachés enjoyed not only the advantage of numerical superiority, but also benefited considerably from the special relationship with the Japanese military as a result of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. Consequently, British officers often received information which was withheld from the other foreign observers."

Source: THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR: Reports from Officers Attached to the Japanese Forces in the Field (London, 1905-6)
http://www.ganesha-publishing.com/russo_jap.htm

I had previously passed this to 3rd Herd by pm, but I have now confirmed via google that one of the British observers was a Canadian officer, Captain HC Thacker. He has been described as Canada's first military attache.

 

[3rd Herd]

Just because a lengthy report was produced doesn't mean Lessons Learned were effectively promulgated.

"In battle after battle, even when their opponents resolved to attack, even though usually out numbered and occasionally out gunned, the Japanese seized the initiative, took the offensive, usually absorbed heavier causalities and won victory after victory. Of all the lessons available form this war, this one was the most clearest. and it was certainly noted by most observers."

Source: Cox, Gary. "Of Aphorisms, Lessons, and Paradigms: Comparing the British and German Histories of the Russo-Japanese War." The Journal of Military History:1992.(pgs 389-402)


"Official Military History is suspect on three counts: it is contemporary, official and collaborative," Leonard Krieger

 

[FascistLibertarian]

No i agree with what you said reccecrewman.  I just have zero information on the psychological aspect of any of those wars and my knowledge of the Civil War is fairly limited.
I have argued with a South African friend of mine until we are blue in the face about the first "modern" war (so stupid I know as it all depends on how you define it....). I say Civil he says Boer
I have no idea how big a killer artillery was in the Civil War but I assume it was not nearly as big as in the First World War.
Not to mention airplanes (I know they were used pre 1914), tanks, the global nature of the conflict, and the number of countries involved, the numbers of people involved.
All wars are of course unique (this is a truism).
I still think the Great War was radically different from all wars before it as the Civil War was.

And as to learning lessons from wars at least the Americans did not draw the lessons the Japanese did from the war with Russia.
Banzi charges work!
Have a descisive naval battle, win, and they will surrender!
Will matters more than production!

 

[TCBF]

"I still think the Great War was radically different from all wars before it as the Civil War was".

- Nope.  Evolutionary, not revolutionary.  Think logistics: Canned food, and the use of railroads to move troops and supplies (like barbed wire!): Civil War.

 

[3rd Herd]

In looking at some of the other armies involved in this era I found a couple of interesting points.The author Bartov "reports that in WWII Hitler’s Army shot at least 13,000 of its soldiers, principally for desertion and failure to show the spirit of fuehrer. This defined the context of psychiatric combat casualties in Hitler’s army. The Kaiser’s army in WWI executed only 48. The nature of coercion and discipline employed by these two armies was very different and this had major implications for how psychiatric casualties were managed." An interesting study of veterans of the Finish Army has shown a rate of PTSD/Battle Exhaustion lower than 10%. The co-authored report this due to "Without exception, they spoke freely about the war, often with emotion. Themes that received emphasis in their accounts included the Finnish fighting spirit and the strong reciprocal bonds of loyalty that were felt during the war. The war now featured prominently as part of their integrity as old men, representing a honourable task that they had been called on to fulfil. The significance they attributed to the war had not waned with time."(Hautamäki, Coleman) Perhaps Evans explains it best with "We should see war stories for what they are: complex narratives that serve many functions – functions that those of us who have never been to war are not always best placed to interpret."

In the realm of did they learn or not, "that the combat psychiatric lessons learned about forward treatment by the U.S. military in WWI were lost by the time of WWII. Lessons that seem clear in retrospect may have been much less clear in 1941. In fact, many of the WWI psychiatrists held that the principal lesson of war was that the soldiers who broke down were predisposed to break down."(Holloway) But further Holloway point out that "in WWII, U.S. psychiatric combat casualties had the same rate of decoration for bravery as those who were wounded in action. The stigmatization of such casualties as cowards was less when this was known." And doing the judging of who was sane and who was not is again interesting as "at least half of U.S. military psychiatrists during WWII were general physicians trained for a brief time by the army and assigned to psychiatric duties. The U.S. army had 20 physicians with some psychiatric experience at the beginning of the war and 2402 by the end of the war. Further, many military psychiatrists during this period attended specialty-training courses or received on-the-job training in the military"(Farrell, Berlien)

Source:

Bartov, O. Hitler’s army: Soldiers, Nazis, and war in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. (1992)

Evans, R. In Defence of History.Cambridge: Granta.2001

Farrell, M. J., & Berlien, I. C. Professional personnel. In A. J. Glass & R. J. Bernucci (Eds.), Neuropsychiatry in World War II: Volume I, The zone of the interior (pp. 41–51).Washington,DC: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army.(1966).

Hautamäki ,A. Coleman, P. G."Explanation for low prevalence of PTSD among older Finnish war veterans: social solidarity and continued significance given to wartime sufferings". Aging & Mental Health. Volume 5, Number 2/May 1, 2001. (165-174)

Holloway, Harry C. "Combat Psychiatry", Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. (June 2002)

 

[FascistLibertarian]

Great point's 3rd Herd!
In a stressful situation there is no way to predict who will or wont break down.
In terms of long term coping being on the winning or losing side is an important variable.
US Soldiers returning from Vietnam found a hostile public. They lacked the acceptance of the earlier generation in Korea and WW2.
How well the general public can understand and relate to the trauma suffered is very important as well.
Hong Kong vets and Vietnam Vets in Canada are a small group so their ordeal receives less attention.
I think the stigma is an important aspect which needs to be broken down more. The attention Dallaire has gotten due to his PTSD, and how he has turned that into a psoitive and his work breaking the stigma, and the proud manner in which he conducts himself should be an inspiration to all.
How could someone who saw such horror, or people who were survivors of such horror, not be affected?

Some other thoughts
After ww1 people were in long term care into the 1960's.
In ww2 many German Generals killed themselves as well (possibly because they were in impossible situations) unlike ww1.
One of our best Generals in ww2 broke down twice during training before he got to combat and went on to an amazing career!

And on the original topic:
The tooth to tail ratio was much higher in the Great War than in ww2.  Infantry by far made up our biggest contribution in ww1 compared to ww2 although casualties to the infantry were horrific in both wars.