Secret
shame of the forgotten casualties of war revealed
Inside
Out, Monday 24 February, 7.30pm, BBC ONE Yorkshire & Lincolnshire
Hundreds
of wartime airmen labelled cowards and reduced to the ranks after
they asked to be taken off flying duties were probably suffering
from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), BBC ONE's Inside Out
programme claims tonight.
Retired
RAF psychiatrist, Dr Gordon Turnbull, who cared for allied prisoners
of war following the Gulf War, says the symptoms displayed by many
men condemned as "lacking moral fibre" were the same as
PTSD.
Today
they would receive treatment - but in the 1940s they were publicly
shamed, stripped of their badges of rank in front of their comrades
and ordered to carry out menial tasks on another station.
Dr Turnbull
- now a civilian psychiatrist practising in Sussex - tells Inside
Out: "I think it was perfectly predictable that the bomber
crews would suffer the effects of what we now know as PTSD. Every
time they went up on a mission, they didn't know whether they were
going to come back.
"The pity
in retrospect is that we didn't deal with it a bit more humanely
or more sensitively."
Many
men categorised as "lacking moral fibre" suffered PTSD-like
symptoms, which at the time were known by aircrews as 'the twitch'.
They included sudden loss of temper, withdrawal and uncontrollable
shaking as a mission approached.
No one knows
how many airmen were shamed by their commanders but BBC researchers
have discovered that at least one officer chose to kill himself
rather than risk being branded a coward.
Sqn
Ldr Roy Skeet, a 24-year-old Wellington bomber pilot based at Linton-on-Ouse,
near York, shot himself in a hotel room with his service revolver
after going absent without leave.
He
was buried in an official war grave but the RAF were so determined
to keep the incident secret, they declared his two suicide notes
official secrets and only allowed his mother to read one under military
supervision.
Sqn Ldr Skeet's
son, Michael, from Lydd, Kent, says his father had reservations
about bombing civilian targets but felt he couldn't face the shame
involved in refusing to fly.
Mr Skeet added:
"There was one of two options - you either flew or you were
considered lacking in moral fibre.
"I suppose
from the Air Ministry's point of view, they felt they had to maintain
discipline but I think it was extremely cruel."
Inside
Out reveals that so many airmen suffered mental problems as a result
of flying operations over Germany that a secret mental hospital
was set up in a hotel at Matlock in the Derbyshire Peak District
to house up to 700 patients at a time.
Notes
to Editors
Please
credit BBC Inside Out if any part of the above is used.
Inside
Out (www.bbc.co.uk/insideout)
is the name for the regional programme which is used across all
the English Regions.
It
has replaced the range of individual titles previously used on BBC
TWO and has introduced a completely new approach to engaging audiences
with aspects of life in their region.
Inside Out is
made and produced locally. It features three different stories each
week - the first item is a traditional investigation, the second
heritage/history based and the third, a personality led piece.
Morland
Sanders is the main presenter of Inside Out for Yorkshire &
Lincolnshire. He is joined by Lucy Hester and Sophie Hull, as well
as guest presenters including Sir Bernard Ingham, Edwina Currie
and boxer Johnny Nelson.
All the
BBC's digital services are now available on Freeview,
the new free-to-view digital terrestrial television service, as well
as on satellite and cable.
Freeview
offers the BBC's eight television channels - including BBC THREE
- as well as six BBC radio networks.
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