A Stain on the Name of Canadian Soldiers

[Radlad]

Very interesting gentlemen. Looks like my reading list has just been added to.

[kenf48]

It appears 'shellshock' and its possible consequences were recognised as contributing to serious crimes in much the same way as PTSD 

 

One particular case was another Canadian soldier, Joseph Hutty, an American who was discharged and returned to his home country.  He was treated for shell shock at the Northern Hospital and nursed by Alice Jones to whom he became engaged. She later broke off the engagement, after the war he returned to England and in July 1919 confronted her on the steps of the hospital.  He shot her seven times and then surrendered to police.  

At his trial he was sentenced to death but he was reprieved and the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. In reporting the reprieve the Scotsman noted, 'he was a victim of shellshock,'

He was sent to Maidstone Prison where two years later he committed suicide by hanging himself from a window frame with tailor's thread.  Clearly a very troubled man.

 

Ken