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"Low Moral Fibre" - RAF vs USAAF
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Brevabloke (U1685837) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
Just at present reading "Tail End Charlies", the story of the bomber war in it's last 18 months.
What has struck me (and saddened me) was the treatment that the RAF meted out to officers and men who were deemed to have "low moral fibre". Maybe one story will surfice...
One man had flown his tour, was very good at his job as a pilot, and was asked to do another, so he did. After his 41st mission, he simply said he could not do any more - and 2 days later lost all his rank and was a latrine orderly. His treatment was the norm, no matter how many missions the person had flown.
The 8th Army Air Force by contrast accepted that a man could only take so much - after all these men were facing a full scale battle EVERY DAY in some periods, and it was accpted that a man could be asked to be taken off operations. No stigma, no loss of rank. He would be redeployed in an area where his experience could help, or even give a long rest, and if HE thought he was OK, put back on combat missions.
The authors seem to feel that the american approach was the better one, and point to statistics that show that they had no more people pulling out than did the RAF! In fact the RAF approach may have been counter productive, as it forced able men to fly with people who had "lost it".
What do you think? -
Message 2
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
Sounds almost like a catch-22... The man wants to continue flying a second tour consequently he must be crazy and a crazy man shouldn't be flying. He should be taken off flying status -- but can't do that until he asks. Obviously however, if he asks to be taken off flying status, he isn't crazy, so he should continue flying.
The British military for reasons best known to themselves have never shown the consideration for their veterans that the US and Canada have. I understand that, at the war's conclusion, British WW2 vets being discharged were offered, at best, training in hackneyed jobs such as shoe repair, whereas in the US and Canada vets were offered 4 years of university education or 20 acre plots of farmland.
However your tale smacks of exaggeration. I find it very hard to believe that even the most arrogant and supercilious of the British desk-warming staff officers would take such a draconian stand when confronted with an officer who had already proven his valour and commitment to the cause. Are you confident that your source is reliable? -
Message 3
Posted by Mark (U2073932) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
Don't sound so surprised, look how the modern government treats vets and wounded servicemen. Not to mention the disgraceful treatment of the gherkas.
Don't even get me started on the government sending men to die in another country without proper equipment!!!!!
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Message 4
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
There's a story about LMF here,
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Message 5
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
Pretty confident its a reliable source - straight from the aircrews mouths, such incidents remaining very strong in thier minds all these years later. The attitude was fostered and approved of by Harris, and actually most of the aircrews it has to be said. The book does provide pretty extensive footnotes to interviews post war etc...
Not sure if you know but at one stage there was a plan to divide the number of short hops (such as raiding the invasion fortifications for D-day) by 3 as Harris thought they were not equal to a trip to Berlin. However he spoke to a Group Commander who's views he trusted and changed his mind (very rare!). -
Message 6
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Thursday, 11th October 2007
Hi Erik, No exageration. Im afraid its all true.
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Message 7
Posted by Mani (U1821129) on Friday, 12th October 2007
Hi Eric,
At the time there was somewhat of a stigma against University education - the class system and all that, plus, Canada and the US haad a fair bit more spare room than we did... We couldn't spare so many millions of acres! -
Message 8
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Friday, 12th October 2007
Hi Erik,
Silly question, but going back on what you said about the American government offering farm land as well as University education. How many men took them up on the land, do you know? Was the take up just from people from farming communities? or did some city boys have a bash? -
Message 9
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th October 2007
I am not sure that the land offer was a general offer. I only heard of it the context of certain specific areas of the west being opened with irrigation systems and the government offering veterans plots. While I know that some made their family fortunes on California land opened this way, most Americans were farming at least part-time before the war, and wanted no part of it.
The Gi Bill's education benefit suceeded beyond anyones expectations. Poor kids who never had a pair of new shoes or owned a book until they were drafted in 1941 took up the offer in droves. The university system underwent massive expansion, populatted by a serious group of older, often married combat verterans with clear-eyed goals and a work ethic. A whole generation of businessmen, university professors, doctors, and engineers were produced from all backgrounds. Each profession was greatly enriched. They are retired now, but when I was in uni, they formed the professorate and my lectures on chemistry, economics and calculus were interspersed with asides on how to survive a confrontation with a tiger in a Sherman and how to rouse a stubborn cotton plow mule.
A nice benefit, and part of the motivation, was to keep the vets out of the work force a bit longer due to unemployment fears. -
Message 10
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 12th October 2007
KurtBronson,
... and my lectures on chemistry, economics and calculus were interspersed with asides on how to survive a confrontation with a tiger in a Sherman and how to rouse a stubborn cotton plow mule.Â
How? And how? -
Message 11
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Friday, 12th October 2007
Yes Kurt the GI bill was an idea of great genius.
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Message 12
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Friday, 12th October 2007
To the best of my knowledge, the offer of farmland was strictly a Canadian venture... the US didn't make such an offer. However, the US vets were definitely offered a university education. The US WW2 ''G.I. Bill'' as it was called, paid for tuition at the university of the vet's choice, plus all other school expenses including lab fees and books. Living costs (i.e. room & board) had to be borne by the vet.
That, to my way of thinking, was a pretty darned good deal.
One question: Mani mentions (above) there was a stigma against university educations. Why? I would have thought men from lower economic status would have jumped at such an opportunity. -
Message 13
Posted by Mani (U1821129) on Friday, 12th October 2007
Hi Erik,
As far as I know (Others may be able to correct me) but it was always the stuff of the upper middle class and above. We didn't mix with them and had no aspirations to be them etc.
All that came down in the 60's... -
Message 14
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th October 2007
I think Mani must be speaking of the UK. While there is always a bit of a "crawfish in a bucket syndrome" anywhere, class consciousness has historically not been quite so sharp in the US.
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Message 15
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th October 2007
Well, if I remember rightly, the former armored guy said if you stubbled up on a tiger, the thing was to run like hell--the Sherman was underarmoured and being gasoline driven would often flame up when hit.
Fortunately, the Sherman was relatively fast while the tiger gun turrent moved slowely--so that in a suprise encounter at close range the American tank crew could take note of the tiger gun postion and take off at a right angle to that giving them some time to find cover while the accompanying infantrymen tried to kill the tank from the flanks. He said that it wasn't his job to kill tanks--that was the infantry's job.
With regard to the mules, it would appear that they all have their own personality as except for the universal 2 X 4 between the eyes technique, everyone has a different story on that one. I have never worked a mule and have no regrets about that. Horses are more than stubborn enough for me. I prefer the internal combustion engine. But it seemed that everyone who grew up on a farm in cotton belt before WW2 has a tale of an epic stuggle between himself and his fathers mules. -
Message 16
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th October 2007
I think that with the class consciousness issue, we touch on another difference that relates to the greater tolerance for combate fatigue in the US army.
The US Army saw itself as a civilian army--just a bunch of civilians in a bad spot for a while until they could get it done with. Even the career people, even the generals, often hung onto a sense of themselves as a civilian, or even as a soldier rather than a primary identity as an officer. So what if a guy buged out. That might mean one doesn't want to share a foxhole with him, but it is just one unpleasant little slice of his life and not who and what he is. He may not be useful as a soldier now, but it doesn't take away from the soldier that he was, and doesn't make him less of a man. I think that was the generally socially accepted attitude of the time. It was why Patton was so disapproved of--his attitude toward his profession was almost Prussian in it's intensity, and the American's didn't feel comfortable with that. They wanted officers who, like Grant, wore a rumpled privates uniform, or like Lee, deliberated marched out of step with his cadets to take the shine off the "spit and polish" -
Message 17
Posted by JB (U569100) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
Certainly true that the RAF went into WWII with an overdeveloped sense of class-consciousness.
It was partly down to an inferiority complex born of being the junior service whose existence as a seperate force (unlike the USAAF) was constantly challenged by the Army & Navy.
Add to that the fact that most RAF top brass of the day were ex-cavalry keen to replicate what they knew.
Much of the "Overpaid, Oversexed & Over Here" resentment stemmed from the pay gap between US & British enlisted men and especially NCO's. The officers on both sides were paid much the same and the differential is a powerful testimony to the relative social equality in the two nations at the time. (But add the caveat of segregation, which the 8th Air Force had to inroduce in some East Anglian towns to preserve the peace among their own men.)
One glaring innaccuracy in the "Battle Of Britain" film is the way that Sqaudron CO (Robert Shaw) treats Sgt Pilot Ian McShane as 'one of the lads' which was far from typical. There was an entire apartheid system of training and recruitment with a Royal Air Force Reserve for the posh boys and a Royal Auxilliery Air Force for the grammar school oiks who were mostly frozen out of the glamourous fighter squadrons and so became the backbone of Bomber Command. (See Max Hastings for details.)
Back at Craiglockhart Hospital in 1918, they had laid down a doctrine that officers suffered from a different sort of 'shell-shock' to enlisted men who were much more likely to receive ECT than the chaps.
The British Military had still not faced up to the reality of PTSD in the 1990s, when Defence Mininster Nicholas Soames was claiming that the malingerers from the 91 Gulf War were all faking it just to get pensions. -
Message 18
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
John Nicol? co wrote "Tail End Charlies" and as an ex RAF man, you would have expected him to support thier position, generally looking back now we can probably conclude the USAAF position was certainly more humane.
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Message 19
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
What is probably not so humane as it first appears is the current policy of disability pensions for PTSD. PTSD is real, it is often lifelong, and if acquired in combat in the service of ones country, ought to entail access to the best treatment that can be had at taxpayer expense like any other war injury. The analogy stops there. There is no evidence that going on to provide a disability pension in any way reduces the misery and actually substantial evidence to the contrary from US data.
In WW2, the US Army was generous with "combat fatigue" diagnoses on discharge with partial disability ratings that gave the soldiers entitlement to VA treatment but not to a pension. So they went on and worked for the next 40 years dispite symptoms--and did well as a group with some misery but not a lot of impairment. Those pensioned however, have very higher rates of substance abuse, failing marriages, arrests, homelessness, and suicides--more than is attributable to the level of symptoms alone. People generally do more of whatever you pay them to do. Pay them for suffering and you get more of it.
I know a Korean war vet who was captured and tortured and has severe nightmares everynight. He still works because getting up and going to work everyday is his escape from thinking about how miserable he is. Without work, what would he be left to do other than contemplate his suffering. -
Message 20
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
Don't know what I thought of this Kurt (maybe because I ride a bike?) but I did hear a lot of combat veterans from the 8th after the war, when the govt had no uses for them (and they didn't fancy the GI Bill) took to fast motorcycles as a way of somehow keeping sane.
I have also read somewhere some ex-RAF blokes did the same; bloke from a fairly humble background, but smart, becomes a pilot in the RAF. After the war the class system here expects him to "know his place" and go back to the factory. So they took up other pursuits instead...and became the Ton Up Boys.
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Message 21
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
With regard to Kurt’s post (number 15) I can offer some confirmation for his comments. My brother was a gunner in a Sherman with Monty’s army moving into Germany from the north, and he told me pretty much the same thing. He mentioned that the Sherman’s brewed up pretty easily and as a consequence, they always removed the large, manhole-like armour plate access door in the tank’s floor leaving a large hole open to the road. In a pinch, he told me, they could get out that way if the other openings were blocked by fire or someone was spraying the turret with bullets….
He also mentioned that the turret on both the Tiger and the Leopard moved very slowly when it was training on a target, and if they topped a hill and saw a Tiger sitting by the roadside below waiting for quarry, they’d stomp on the gas and barrel as fast as the Sherman could move along the road while the gunner in the Tiger struggled to bring his tube to bear. While he concentrated on aiming his gun at the first tank (and failing), another two or three would zip down beside him and fire, at close range, as fast as they could as many shots as they could into the tracks or side armour. Even if it didn’t penetrate, it would shake up the men inside to such an extent that they couldn’t do anything in the way of moving the tank or shooting at anyone. Sooner or later, he said, a Sherman would get around behind it and slam a few shells through the lighter armour there. He claimed to have been involved in several such incidents, and considering the gongs and two mentions-in-despatches he had earned, I wouldn’t dare to doubt it. -
Message 22
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
The Hell's Angels and less infamous motorcycle clubs in the US were largely founded by combat vets. I don't know if they were more from the Air Corp or not, although the Hell's Angels trace their name and lineage to a particular bomber outfit with the same name. Doing the motorcycle thing myself, in my area it has been noted that there is a lot of overlap between flyers and bikers.
I had to look up the Ton Up Boys. Thanks for the lead.
That the Hells Angels was originally a bunch of vets sort of explains their continued rough patriotism even as they were starting to get more antisocial in the 60's, evolving eventually into a criminal organization. I think their high point was when 7 of them broke up a anti-war demonstration in '65 that 400 riot police had been unable to stop. -
Message 23
Posted by Mani (U1821129) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
Hi Kurt,
RE the Hells angels, I remember Sonny Barger and a few of his 'buddies' volunteering for 'special assignment' in Vietnam... -
Message 24
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Sunday, 14th October 2007
Kurt have a look at this book - its brilliant - if you get hold of a copy that is!
I've been to the Ace many a time and am keen on Cafe Racers myself....next bike will be a project to construct a cafe racer in the style of the early 60s based on a Guzzi engine. -
Message 25
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Sunday, 14th October 2007
Thanks for the reference. When I was in my teens, we all had bikes or one sort or another--usually dirt bikes or what is called dual sport now. We ran the roads regularly although we weren't old enough to get a liscense and most of bikes were registered. There was no enforcement in our remote rural community.
But an older guy retired from the US air force and brought back a souped up, somewhat ratted-out Norton Commando.
We thought he was on a higher plane than us mere mortals. -
Message 26
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Monday, 15th October 2007
The actual charge was a `Lack of Moral Fibre'.
This was such a catch all phrase that it was used against anyone who got on the wrong side of his commanding officer. I have heard it was used to exclude homosexuals from military service although we know this was not universally applied.
By the Second World War the British military authorities had largely absorbed the lesson of the Great War concerning the `shell-shocked', namely soldiers who had shown their bravery often enough in combat but who had reached the end of the line. Of course there are always dinosaurs.
I always understood that the RAF rotated their combat squadron personnel as best as conditions allowed. -
Message 27
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Monday, 15th October 2007
I always thought that too Stanilic, but this book (based on mnay personal accounts) casts a completely different light on it.
During a tour, whether it be the first or the third, you could not pull out because you had "lost it". The very very few lucky ones (commissioned officers I believe) ended up in a hsopital in Matlock, and got certain care and decent treatment.
This didn't seem to apply to the men or NCOs.
In fact the treatment of Sgt pilots overall was disgusting, and if anything worse at the end of the war. They could leave, or cease flying duties and be reduced to LAC rank. Great choice!! -
Message 28
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Tuesday, 16th October 2007
Sceptical
I expect the cause for the concern about Sergeant pilots was that certain elements within the pre-war RAF had difficulty accepting pilots who could not be deemed officers and gentlemen.
It was only the exigencies of what eventually became known as `total war' that required they change their attitude.
This is no doubt part of the old scenario of ensuring the lower orders knew their place. -
Message 29
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Tuesday, 16th October 2007
The statistics seem to bear out the "classist" argument, but they don't take into account RAF wartime policy - which should not be confused with peacetime policy.
The official view, based on WWI experience, was that 21 was the best age for commissioning combatant officers. Wartime aircrew were considered for commissions at the end of flying training; when they reached 21 years of age (if that hadn't happened during training); at the end of their first tour; and at intervals thereafter. Immediate commissions could be awarded at any time. This applied to ALL aircrew, irrespective of background (pre-war Auxilaries and RAFVR are not relevant here).
Thus, Pilot Officer Barton, who received a posthumous VC for the Nuremberg raid, had already completed 16 missions as an NCO pilot but, on reaching 21, was commissioned.
The majority of LMF horror stories apply to 1943, when Bomber Command, in the absence of a land invasion of Europe, was delivering the British main offensive against Germany proper.
The analysis that hasn't been done, at least to my knowledge, is how many of the LMF cases were first tourers (i.e. those who hadn't amortised their training investment) against second tourers.
Max Hastings and John Terraine have separately published observations on this topic. Hastings raised the interesting point that, whatever the USAAF policy on morale, more USAAF aircraft ended up in neutral Sweden and Switzerland than RAF ones, and almost all the RAF ones had been damaged. -
Message 30
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 17th October 2007
LostWeekend,
Max Hastings and John Terraine have separately published observations on this topic. Hastings raised the interesting point that, whatever the USAAF policy on morale, more USAAF aircraft ended up in neutral Sweden and Switzerland than RAF ones, and almost all the RAF ones had been damaged.Â
Did any of them row there in a rubber dinghy?
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Message 31
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Wednesday, 17th October 2007
White Camry
Alas, no.
But the Yank on that mission lived to a ripe old age in Norfolk, Virginia, much admired by his successors on the squadron. -
Message 32
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Wednesday, 17th October 2007
<quote userid=</quote>Max Hastings and John Terraine have separately published observations on this topic. Hastings raised the interesting point that, whatever the USAAF policy on morale, more USAAF aircraft ended up in neutral Sweden and Switzerland than RAF ones, and almost all the RAF ones had been damaged.</quote>
I don't know what Hastings is implying there. The USAAF missions were flown in dayight so it's difficult to use ''being lost'' as an excuse for winding up hundreds of miles from home. On the other hand, those daylight missions must have been utterly terrifying to the crews, particularly during the period when fighter escort wasn't available. Losses on some of those raids amounted to 20 percent, and it wasn't very hard for aircrewmen to figure out that such losses meant that statistically they wouldn't survive their 6th mission.
I imagine there's a huge emotional difference between flying all alone at night, hoping against hope that you won't be spotted by a fighter, and flying in the midst of a mass of planes, seeing death screaming at you from every point in the compass as well as above and below, watching a/c beside, in front, and behind you, being blown apart, bodies sailing past the windscreens and exploding shells tearing asunder a/c flown by people you had beer with the previous night. Which of the two settings would be the more nerve-wracking, I wouldn't even try to gauge.
I'm the last person who'd pass judgement on someone who'd duck out of either maelstrom. I can only thank all the gods that ever were and maybe a few that aren't yet, that I was a little too young to get involved in that butchery.
Contrary to what I perceive as the implied criticisms of Hastings, I do think it's important to point out that once the USAAF squadrons embarked on a mission, they never turned back, regardless of the losses.... one or two a/c may have deserted, but the flights as a whole went on to their targets. I assume that this is also true of Bomber Command...
German wings, on the other hand, often tuned back from a mission when their losses were high. -
Message 33
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 19th October 2007
Erik
I don't think Hastings was implying anything - he merely pointed out that many more USAAF acft were interned in Sweden and Switzerland than RAF ones. He definitely doesn't suggest that USAAF turned back from a mission.
The comparative figures are Switzerland: USAAF 166, RAF 13. Sweden: USAAF over 100 by Summer 1944 (couldn't find a final total), RAF 57 (plus 7 BOAC).
The USAAF was sufficiently worried to commission an investigation in 1944, which Spaatz vigorously opposed, although he carried it out.
The numbers represented a very small proportion of the overall total of operational sorties, of either air force, in any case.
In the 1990s, the USAF paid for a serving officer, Mark K Wells, to do a PhD at King's College London on the subject of comparative aircrew morale. This was subsequently published as "Courage and Air Warfare". It looks at both the USAAF and RAF experiences. Worth a read for anyone interested in this aspect of the bomber offensive.
Agree, different forms of combat experience, impossible to compare in terms of one worse than the other.
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