Battle Fatigue

Heroes Remember

Battle Fatigue

Transcript

We didn’t know that. We didn’t have those words then. We just knew they were depressed or they just weren’t normal. I can remember, often the doctors would say, some men they were concerned about, they would say, “Talk to them and see if you can find out anything that we’re not getting. They should be getting better and have they any worries at home, whether it’s personal or financial or whatever or maybe they were not getting well... along well in their unit.” But, they said, “Try and find out.” So, this was probably that problem, but it was not recognized as that, then. So that was when you would be talking to the patients and we also found that if we were in the wards a lot and working with them, helping them make beds and so on, that they were much better. They were better and we were better because we had this contact so we used to be in the wards with them as much as possible.

Description

Ms. MacAulay talks briefly about post traumatic stress disorder, or battle fatigue, as it was better known during the Second World War.

Kathleen Jean MacAulay

Ms. MacAulay was born in Meadowville, Nova Scotia on January 2, 1917. She attended school in Meadowville in a one room school for grades 1 - 10. Then she went to nearby Stellarton for grade 11 and New Glasgow for grade 12. After attending Maritime Business College for a year, she left and went to Halifax to train as a nurse at the Victoria General Hospital. Ms. MacAulay graduated as a nurse in 1941 and enlisted to go overseas. Ms. MacAulay made the four day voyage on the Queen Elizabeth and landed in Scotland. Shortly after arriving, she was sent to Bramshott where she worked in the operating room and in the ward from Oct. ‘43 to July ‘44. From there, she went to Whitby for a short period before heading over to Normandy. Ms. MacAulay ended up in Germany at the end of the war and was there for part of the occupation. She met her husband, a Canadian soldier, in Germany and was married to him in Jan. ‘46. She returned to Canada aboard HMS Rodney in June of ‘46.

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