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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)There were a couple of brief R and R visits to Australia, including one trip to Sydney (Charlie brought back a B-24 load of beer and liquor to Port Moresby - the men were quite grateful!).At this point in the war, there was a shortage of pilots and crews, and there was no rotation policy in place - crews just kept flying indefinitely. The strain of the missions was hard on Charlie as it was on many pilots and crew, and in May 1943, he and several other pilots of the 321st were diagnosed with 'severe combat fatigue' and ordered Back to the States, along with their crews. This is now known as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) , and is common in military people exposed to combat conditions over weeks or months at a time. Charlie recovered well enough to continue flying in training and transport. For the remainder of 1943, Charlie was an instructor pilot in the B-24, in Idaho and other locations, though he also got some leave time in the summer of 1943, during which he returned to New England to marry his fiancée, Roberta Patten. |
In 1944, he joined the Air Transport Command, and he ferried B-24’s and various other aircraft all over the USA and to and from England and Australia. He did not receive another combat assignment. During this time, the after-effects of combat became worse, and though he continued flying, he suffered from a variety of symptoms of stress, including poor sleep and various physical ailments. When he reported these problems to the flight surgeons, they did the only thing they could do at the time - ground him from flying.
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