Psychological disorders in flying personnel of the Royal Air Force : investigated during the war 1939-1945 / Air Ministry.

Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychological disorders in flying personnel of the Royal Air Force : investigated during the war 1939-1945 / Air Ministry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Air Ministry, . Kingsway, To the Permanent Under Secretary of State for Air. London, W.C.2. Sips I have the honour a submit a survey of psychological disorders in flying personnel of the Royal Air Force investigated during the war 1939-1945, to enable the medical branch to give authoritative advice to the executive on the operational limit of members of air crews. The study was begun at operational commands in 1942 by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Charles P. Symonds, K.B.E., C.B., M.D., F.R.C.P., Consultant in Neuiro- psychiatry, and Wing Commander Denis qt) Williams, D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., Specialist in Neuro-psychiatry. Field investigations were carried out in the operational commands by Squadron Leader D. D. Reid, M.D. An assessment of the incidence of predisposition to psychological disorders in flying personnel showed that two-thirds of individuals who failed to withstand the stress of flying were predisposed to nervous breakdown. As this group undoubtedly contained individuals capable of adapting themselves satisfactorily to operational flying, it was decided that only severely predisposed individuals should be rejected at entry, and that those with other degrees of predisposition should be watched carefully during training and eliminated if sigris of temperamental unsuitability appeared. For this reason the attention of medical officers and flying instructors was directed to signs of temperamental unsuitability for duties as members of air crews. Flying instructors are particularly well placed to discern signs of nervousness in the air from observation of pupils in the mirror, from their manner of handling the controls and obeying instructions, and from observation of behaviour on the ground, such as lack of keenness, excuses for putting off flying, and reporting sick for trivialities. Surveys of psychological disorder in air crew showed similar findings year by year: about 3,000 cases of nervous breakdown and 300 of lack of confidence annually, which indicated that a uniform standard of psychiatric examination was being maintained. As regards type of flying duty associated with breakdown, one-third of the neurosis cases occurred in Bomber and one-third in Flying Training Commands, the remainder being distributed among flying personnel of Coastal, Fighter and Transport Commands. One-third broke down without experience of operational flying, one-third with under 100 hours’ and one-third with over 100 hours’ operational flying. Types of nervous breakdown were chiefly anxiety , pstertas, both » together accounting for over 90 per cent of cases. Practically all cases of nervous breakdown (98-4 per cent) arose from underlyifig psychological rather than physical causes. Analysis of the disposal of cases of psychological disorder showed that 224 per cént of cases returned to full flying and 34 per cent to limited flying ; the majority of cases, 72 per cent, were grounded; 1-9 per cent required to be invalided. _ In 1945, the reliability of the psychiatric method of diagnosing psychological disorders in R.A.F. flying personnel was investigated by statistical methods by Professor A. Bradford Hill, D.Sc., Ph.D., and Wing Commander Denis J. Williams, D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P. A fair degree of agreement in psychiatric diagnosis was found in the assessment of severe predisposition, but in the other degrees of predisposition the disagreement was such that it was decided that the psychiatric assessment per se should not be used in selection of air crew at entry but should be regarded as one medical factor to be taken into account by the selection board in the final summing-up. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, H. E. WHITTINGHAM Director-General of Medical Services, January, 1946. ' Royal Air Force.