Memory, Trauma, and the Irish Sea

[adzze]

I never thought I'd post a thread on this board but I spotted a short article in a recent Police newsletter that I thought would interest people here. The military aviation aspect interested me obviously but also the memory aspect (one of my undergraduate majors was psychology).
Incidentally, no disrespect is intended to this gentleman or his family, if any here happen to recognise this story.


An 88-year-old male crashed into the rear of a truck in a rural location. There were no obvious injuries but he was taken to hospital by ambulance for a check over.The attending constable asked if I could get details from the elderly man, so I went to A&E and found him sitting up in bed chatting with a nurse.

I introduced myself and said to him "Tell me about your crash." He replied, "Well I was flying my marinised Spitfire, called a Seafire, over the Irish Sea on a training exercise and was meant to land on an aircraft carrier. Unfortunately the hook my aircraft failed to pick up the wire on the deck and I ended up in the nets at the end of the ship. The aircraft and I were both fine. We had full-body harnesses for seat belts in the plane made of strong webbing. Even so, the doctor took me below deck and checked me out, he gave me a sweet cup of tea and I was flying again the next day."

As you can imagine there was a bit of a pause, and I said, "That's a great story but tell me about the crash you had today." He replied, "What crash, where did this happen?"



Somewhat off topic, but this story also reminded me of another case (in the 60s or 70s) of an older American man who had amnesia and thought he was still serving in WWII. He was shown a picture of the CVN Nimitz and he commented that it was an "ultra-modern design" but became suspicious because Admiral Nimitz was still serving and he hadn't heard of any carrier being named after him. The psychologist then showed the man's own face to him in a mirror and the man was so horrified that the psychologist immediately regretted doing so.

[Dave Homewood]

Those are interesting stories Adzze. However as neither has anything to do with WWI and they both related to aircraft carriers I have shifted this to the Naval Aviation board from the WWI Aviation board.

Memory is a strange thing, the way that it plays tricks with older people like that My Nana had Alzheimers and she came to live with Mum and Dad for some time while she was not safe living by herself anymore but not bad enough for a home (which she went to later and died at). She used to be lucid one minute and next minute she'd be rambling and confused. She talked away to herself constantly while sitting alone in her armchair in her room, and we'd hear her swearing at someone but knew there was no-one else there - and she often used to tell Mum that "the old bitch was staring at me again". And "Tell that old bitch to get out of my room". After some while it dawned on us all, the "old bitch staring at her" was her own reflection in her dressing table mirror. We all found it funny as hell and dreadfully sad that she had been swearing away at herself and never realised.

[adzze]

Cheers Dave, I thought I had put them in a WWII board but obviously not. Thanks for the story about your Nana too. I can easily imagine how different people's preconceptions could come into play in a situation like that too, someone interested in New Age type stuff might have assumed she was talking about a "visiting" relative.

[shorty]

That US Navy story is reminiscent of the segment in "The Final Countdown" where the question of the carrier's name comes up. I wonder if one story begat the other and has the film clip become part of folklore or did the other episode happen and was used in the film?

[adzze]

Nov 25, 2011 7:49:04 GMT 12 shorty said:

That US Navy story is reminiscent of the segment in "The Final Countdown" where the question of the carrier's name comes up. I wonder if one story begat the other and has the film clip become part of folklore or did the other episode happen and was used in the film?

You had me worried for a moment there shorty that my own memory was playing tricks on me so I went googling and found the original story ("the lost mariner") evidently from the memoirs of a clinician.

www.colorado.edu/MCDB/MCDB3650/SacksChp2and12.pdf

[flyjoe180]

I remember that film shorty, the F14s shoot down those Zero fighters and the modern day people accidentally save a politician who was meant to die.