Civil Resettlement Units

Last updated
The poster created to advertise CRUs during the Second World War Get in Shape for Civvy Street - Civil Resettlement Units Art.IWMPST2977.jpg
The poster created to advertise CRUs during the Second World War

Civil Resettlement Units, or CRUs, was a scheme created during the Second World War by Royal Army Medical Corps psychiatrists to help British Army servicemen who had been prisoners of war (POWs) to return to civilian life, and to help their families and communities to adjust to having them back. Units were set up across Britain from 1945 and later expanded to provide for Far East Prisoners of War (FEPOWs) as well as those who had been captive in European camps. By March 1947, 19,000 European POWs and 4,500 FEPOWs had attended a unit.

Contents

Background

During the First World War and shortly afterwards, many psychiatrists including Sigmund Freud assumed that soldiers who had been captured were 'virtually immune' from psychological harm because they were at a safe distance from battle. [1] This was linked with the belief that shell shock might be a way of escaping from danger. [2] Around the time of the Second World War, this view began to change. Psychiatrists and psychologists such as Millais Culpin and Adolf Vischer argued that POWs were at risk of mental harm, and Vischer coined the term "barbed-wire disease" to describe this condition. [1] Psychiatrists had been keen to look into these ideas, and the outbreak of war gave them the opportunity to conduct research. [3] The 1929 Geneva Convention had changed how POWs were dealt with by setting forth rules for prisoner exchange which made it possible for POWs to be returned to their home nations before the end of the war. [4]

In September 1943, Lieutenant General Sir Alexander Hood hosted an Army meeting at the Directorate of Army Psychiatry to discuss the repatriation of POWs, at which it was decided that British Army psychiatrists should investigate what difficulties POWs might experience on their return home, and how these difficulties might be dealt with. [5] As with much British Army psychiatry during the Second World War, work on rehabilitating POWs was headed by a group who called themselves the "Invisible College" and who formed the Tavistock Institute after the war. [3]

Northfield Military Hospital

POWs experiencing the most apparently severe difficulties on repatriation were treated at military psychiatric hospitals such as Northfield Military Hospital. Psychiatrists Major Whiles and Alfred Torrie noted that patients were often 'markedly resentful of everyone and everything.' [6] Psychiatrists suggested that these feelings could lead to civil unrest after the war if experienced by the significant number of POWs who would be returning. [5]

No. 21 WOSB

Psychiatrist Major Wilfred Bion and psychologist Lieutenant Colonel Eric Trist conducted work at No. 21 War Office Selection Board (WOSB), Selsdon Court Hotel, Surrey where they attempted to adapt officer selection methods to the purpose of selecting POWs who might be capable of returning to active service. The "officer reception unit" was intended to 'provide them with advice on military retraining and re-employment, and on other problems.' [3] Bion suggested that resettlement should use 'psychiatric machinery; but the machinery need not cause irritation by creaking' and so any programme for handling POWs should appear more military than medical though it should incorporate psychiatric treatment in a subtle manner. [7]

The Crookham Experiment

At No. 1 RAMC Depot at Boyce Barracks in Crookham, psychiatrist Major A. T. M. "Tommy" Wilson headed an experimental programme to rehabilitate repatriated medical personnel. The experiment ran from November 1943 to February 1944, and involved 1200 POWs undergoing a four-week programme of rehabilitation and training. POW problems included low morale, absenteeism, high levels of sickness, and psychological disturbance. [3] Conclusions from the experiment were published in a memorandum titled The Prisoner of War Comes Home. This document argued that most POWs were not mentally ill but were maladjusted, and required support on their return home. [8]

Special Reception and Training Unit

In February 1944, the War Office agreed to establish a voluntary scheme to help POWs return to Britain based upon the Army psychiatrists' work. This scheme was announced in the House of Lords in July 1944. [9] In November 1944, a pilot unit called No. 10 Special Reception and Training Unit (SRTU) was set up in Derby. Wilson was selected to head this Unit as opposed to Bion, who expressed his dismay in a letter to fellow psychiatrist John Rickman. [10] Bion believed that the psychological principles underpinning the CRUs, which built on his earlier work at Northfield, were underdeveloped and needed further refinement. However, the first group of POWs were imminently due to return to Britain from Germany, which is likely why Wilson was selected to lead the SRTU. [5]

The SRTU pilot indicated to the Army psychiatrists that some changes were required before a scheme could be created on a larger scale. The "hutted camp" was too similar to a stalag, so more luxurious accommodation should be provided in future, and the proposed six weeks was deemed too long and so cut to four weeks. Lectures were not very popular, but visits to workshops proved unexpectedly popular, so the team built connections with the Ministry of Labour to facilitate work placements and visits. [5] Food was a particular concern of POWs, so table service was provided rather than having men queue.

Establishment of Civil Resettlement Units

In March 1945, the War Office agreed for 20 Civil Resettlement Units to be created. In the spring of 1945, the CRU organisers made frantic preparations for the first large wave of POWs returning from Germany. They secured Hatfield House as CRU Headquarters and No. 1 CRU, and other country houses across Britain were adapted for use as CRUs so that men could attend a Unit close to where they lived.

Name

The planning team who created the CRUs gave a great deal of thought to what they should be called. Based on the Crookham and No. 21 WOSB investigations, Army psychiatrists emphasised that POWs were very sensitive to accusations or implications that they were mentally "damaged." Based on this the Adjutant General Sir Ronald Adam issued official instructions that:

The word "rehabilitation is frequently taken to connote a process of mental or physical reconditioning made necessary as the prisoner of war is looked on as abnormal or even a "mental case" [thus] the expression "mental rehabilitation" or these words separately shall not be used in conversation or in writing. [11]

One of the participants at the SRTU had also strongly recommended that the planners change the name of the Unit. He stated that 'I would not call it a Special Training Unit to any man... I think the word "training" should be changed.' [12] In the end, the planners decided that 'the expressions "resettlement" or "resettlement training" will be employed instead.' [11]

Staff

Each unit had a Commanding Officer and Second-in-Command (who were military men), a Medical Officer (usually a psychiatrist, though often this was not acknowledged to the participants attending), Vocational Officer, Ministry of Labour Liaison and a Civil Liaison Officer (a social worker, usually a woman, trained in psychological methods).

A large proportion of the other CRU staff were Auxiliary Territorial Service staff: POWs might not have interacted with women for years, so these women staff were intended to help repatriates become more comfortable in mixed company as well as to facilitate the running of CRUs. [5]

The team at No. 1 CRU, the CRU Headquarters, consisted of Tommy Wilson as the head psychiatrist and Medical Officer, Colonel Richard Meadows Rendel as Commanding Officer, psychologists Eric Trist and Isabel Menzies Lyth, mathematician Harold Bridger, and military officers Ian Dawson and Dick Braund. [13]

Programme

A "syndicate" of 60 volunteers (in four batches of 15) arrived each week at the CRU. They listened to introductory talks from the Commanding Officer and Medical Officer. After this, the programme was entirely voluntary except for an interview when a participant left the CRU. Participants had the opportunity to attend workshops, visit nearby workplaces or have work-experience placements. They were able to attend group discussions, meet with the Vocational Officer to talk about careers, and meet with the Civil Liaison Officer to talk about social or relationship concerns. [14] Whist drives and dances were held at the CRUs, bringing the local civilian population to the Unit with the intention of helping civilians and repatriated POWs to interact and adjust to one another. Men were not required to wear their military uniforms except for the pay parade when they were given their salaries. [5]

Communication and publications about CRUs

To inform POWs about the scheme as early as possible, information was distributed through the British Red Cross and the officers of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, who had access to POWs whilst they were still in prisoner of war camps. [15]

A leaflet called Settling Down on Civvy Street was issued to POWs after they had been back in Britain for a week or two. This timing was intended to catch their attention when the initial excitement of repatriation had subsided and POWs might begin to experience some frustration or have questions. [5]

Many local or regional newspapers carried stories about local CRUs and the local men participating in the scheme. [5] National newspapers also reported the creation of the CRUs, and on 12 July 1945, the King and Queen visited Hatfield, which generated significant news coverage. [16] [17] [18]

POW participation

All of those who attended the CRUs were volunteers. Those from the earlier studies were compelled by the Army to attend, but were due for discharge or release on completion of their course. [5]

With the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the War Office planned for CRUs to accept only Far East prisoners of war (FEPOWs), based on the assumption that the CRUs would not be able to manage the combined number of POWs from Europe and the Far East and that the FEPOWs were more in need of the service. Wilson and Rendel felt that European POWs should not be denied the opportunity to attend, and went to lengths to expand the programme where possible and make space for both groups. Rendel and Wilson were removed from heading the programme as a result. [19] By the end of March 1947, more than 19,000 European POWs and 4,500 FEPOWs had attended a CRU. [20]

Validation

Major Adam Curle and Eric Trist conducted a study to evaluate the efficacy of CRUs. They found that 26% of POWs who attended a CRU demonstrated "unsettlement" compared with 64% of POWs who did not attend a CRU. [14] Curle and Trist found that the "settled" men studied had better social relationships than a civilian control sample. They argued that this demonstrated the CRU's worth as a therapeutic community. However, they also noted that the results might have been affected by more "settled" men being more likely to attend a CRU in the first place. [14]

Edgar Jones and Simon Wessely have argued that the small sample size and the single location studied limit the validity of the validation study. [1]

The principles and some of the methods devised for the CRUs were later adapted and applied to European civilian refugees displaced by war.

CRUs represent one of the first controlled experiments in social psychology. [6] The work conducted at the CRUs contributed to the development of the concept and methods of therapeutic communities. Many of the staff of No. 1 CRU had worked on WOSBs, and their collaborative work on these two schemes resulted in them coming together after the war to establish the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in 1947. [21]

The archives of the Tavistock Institute, which include extensive materials on the psychological principles behind and creation of the CRUs, have been catalogued and donated to the Wellcome Library where they can be ordered and viewed. [22] [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prisoner of war</span> Military term for a captive of the enemy

A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatfield House</span> Country house in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England

Hatfield House is a Grade I listed country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean house, a leading example of the prodigy house, was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I. It is a prime example of Jacobean architecture. The estate includes extensive grounds and surviving parts of an earlier palace. The house is currently the home of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury. It is open to the public.

Eric Lansdown Trist was an English scientist and leading figure in the field of organizational development (OD). He was one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tavistock Institute</span> British not-for-profit organisation

The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a British not-for-profit organisation that applies social science to contemporary issues and problems. It was initiated in 1946, when it developed from the Tavistock Clinic, and was formally established as a separate entity in September 1947. The journal Human Relations is published on behalf of the Tavistock Institute by Sage Publications. The institute is located in Gee Street in Clerkenwell, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust</span> London Psychotherapic Clinic

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kingdom and abroad. The Trust is based at the Tavistock Centre in Swiss Cottage. The founding organisation was the Tavistock institute of medical psychology founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller.

Hugh Crichton-Miller was a Scottish physician and psychiatrist. He founded the Bowden House nursing home for nervous diseases at Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1912 and the Tavistock Clinic in London in 1920.

John Rawlings Rees,, also known as 'Jack' or 'J.R.', was a British civilian and military psychiatrist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Far East prisoners of war</span>

Far East prisoners of war is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe former British and Commonwealth prisoners of war held in the Far East during the Second World War. The term is also used as the initialism FEPOW, or as the abbreviation Far East POWs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japanese prisoners of war in World War II</span> Aspect of history

During World War II, it was estimated that between 35,000 and 50,000 members of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces surrendered to Allied servicemembers prior to the end of World War II in Asia in August 1945. Also, Soviet troops seized and imprisoned more than half a million Japanese troops and civilians in China and other places. The number of Japanese soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who surrendered was limited by the Japanese military indoctrinating its personnel to fight to the death, Allied combat personnel often being unwilling to take prisoners, and many Japanese soldiers believing that those who surrendered would be killed by their captors.

Thomas Forrest Main (1911–1990) was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who coined the term 'therapeutic community'. He is particularly remembered for his often cited paper, The Ailment (1957).

Leslie John Audus was a British botanist and an international authority on the hormones that control plant growth. During World War II, while being held in a Japanese internment camp, he cultured yeast to feed and save the lives of his fellow POW's.

Henry Victor Dicks was a British psychiatrist. He drew on his wartime experiences, which included the medical care of Rudolf Hess, to develop views on authoritarian personality and the collective psychopathology of authoritarian regimes.

John Rickman was an English psychoanalyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabel Lyth</span> Psychoanalyst and social scientist

Isabel Menzies Lyth born Isabel Edgar Punton (1917–2008) was a British psychoanalyst in the Kleinian tradition, known for her work on unconscious mechanisms in institutional settings.

George Ronald Hargreaves OBE, FRCP, MRCS was a civilian and military psychiatrist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German prisoners of war in the United Kingdom</span> Overview of the imprisonment of German combatants in the UK during WW2

Large numbers of German prisoners of war were held in Britain between the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and late 1948. Their numbers reached a peak of around 400,000 in 1946, and then began to fall when repatriation began. The experiences of these prisoners differed in certain important respects from those of captured German servicemen held by other nations. The treatment of the captives, though strict, was generally humane, and fewer prisoners died in British captivity than in other countries. The British government also introduced a programme of re-education, which was intended to demonstrate to the POWs the evils of the Nazi regime, while promoting the advantages of democracy. Some 25,000 German prisoners remained in the United Kingdom voluntarily after being released from prisoner of war status.

Frederick Hubert Vinden was a Brigadier in the British Army who played a key role in the establishment of new officer selection methods, the War Office Selection Boards. Vinden later had a career in international service. He played a key role in building the Indian Civil Service after the country was declared independent in 1947, and worked for the UN, UNESCO, and the OECD.

Alexander Thomson Macbeth Wilson MD RAMC FRCPsych FBPsS FRSA was a British psychiatrist who was a pioneer of therapeutic communities.

War Office Selection Boards, or WOSBs, were a scheme devised by British Army psychiatrists during World War II to select potential officers for the British Army. They replaced an earlier method, the Command Interview Board, and were the precursors to today's Army Officer Selection Boards. The WOSBs were also later adapted to civilian purposes such as selecting civil servants and firemen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom</span> Australian unit stationed in the UK during WWII

Elements of the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were located in the United Kingdom (UK) throughout World War II. For most of the war, these comprised only a small number of liaison officers. However, between June and December 1940 around 8,000 Australian soldiers organised into two infantry brigades and supporting units were stationed in the country. Several small engineer units were also sent to the UK, and up to 600 forestry troops were active there between July 1940 and mid-1943. A prisoner of war (POW) repatriation unit arrived in the UK in August 1944, and over 5,600 released AIF prisoners eventually passed through the country. Following the war, small numbers of Australian soldiers formed part of a military cricket team which toured England, and the Army contributed most members of the Australian contingent to the June 1946 victory parade in London.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Jones, Edgar; Wessely, Simon (2007). "A paradigm shift in the conceptualization of psychological trauma in the 20th century". Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 21 (2): 164–175. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.09.009. PMID   17064877.
  2. Cohen, David (1991). "A war of nerves: Doctors once thought that soldiers suffering from shell shock were simply malingering to escape the battlefield. A century studded with wars has given the medical profession ample opportunity to realise its mistake" . New Scientist (1759).
  3. 1 2 3 4 Ahrenfeldt, Robert H. (1958). Psychiatry in the British Army in the Second World War. Columbia University Press.
  4. Geneva Convention  . 1929. Part IV: Termination of Captivity via Wikisource.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 White, Alice (2016). "Chapter Five: Settling down in Civvy Street" (PDF). From the Science of Selection to Psychologising Civvy Street: The Tavistock Group, 1939–1948 (PhD thesis). University of Kent.
  6. 1 2 Harrison, Tom (22 March 2017). Bion, Rickman, Foulkes, and the Northfield Experiments: Advancing on a Different Front. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN   9781853028373.
  7. Group, British Medical Journal Publishing (16 June 1945). "Return from Stalag". Br Med J. 1 (4406): 844–845. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.4406.844. ISSN   0007-1447. PMC   2057612 . PMID   20786129.
  8. Technical Memoranda No.13 "The Prisoner of War Comes Home" (Report). Directorate of Army Psychiatry. 1944. library archive record
  9. Fortesque, Earl Hugh (26 July 1944). "Repatriated R.A.M.C. Personnel". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  10. Vonofakos, Dimitris; Hinshelwood, Bob (1 January 2012). "Wilfred Bion's Letters to John Rickman (1939–1951)Introduction". Psychoanalysis and History. 14 (1): 81. doi:10.3366/pah.2012.0099. ISSN   1460-8235.
  11. 1 2 Nichol, John; Rennell, Tony (4 September 2003). The Last Escape: The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Germany 1944–1945. Penguin Adult. ISBN   9780141003887.
  12. Volunteering for CRUs: Notes for Military Advisory Officers (Report). Department of Army Psychiatry. 1945. library archive record
  13. Trahair, Richard (1 June 2015). Behavior, Technology, and Organizational Development: Eric Trist and the Tavistock Institute. Transaction Publishers. ISBN   9781412855495.
  14. 1 2 3 Curle, Adam; Trist, Eric; Wilson, A.T.M. (1990). "Transitional Communities and Social Reconnection: The Civil Resettlement of British Prisoners of War" (PDF). The Social Engagement of Social Science: Volume I, The Socio-Psychological Perspective. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   978-0812281927.
  15. Lecture to SHAEF Officers' Course (Report). Department of Army Psychiatry. 1945. library archive record
  16. "The King and Queen with Ex-Prisoners: Visit to Civil Resettlement Unit". The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury. 13 July 1945.
  17. "Resettling War Prisoners: Aids to Civil Life: The King and Queen at Hatfield". The Times. 13 July 1945. CS69681389 via Gale.
  18. "Army's Civil Resettlement: King and Queen Visit Hatfield House Centre". The Manchester Guardian. 13 July 1945 via Proquest.
  19. Trist, Eric (2000). "Working with Bion in the 1940s: The Group Decade". In Pines, Malcolm (ed.). Bion and Group Psychotherapy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p. 24. ISBN   9781853029240.
  20. Mackenzie, S. P. (2006). The Colditz Myth: British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199203079.
  21. Dicks, H. V. (14 October 2014). Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic (Psychology Revivals). Routledge. ISBN   9781317587880.
  22. "Wellcome Library Manuscripts and Archives catalogue". archives.wellcomelibrary.org. Wellcome Library. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
  23. "Introducing the Wellcome Element - TIHR Archive Project". TIHR Archive Project. Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. 10 March 2016. Retrieved 11 September 2016.