Army psychiatry in the Korean War: The experience of 1 Commonwealth Division

This study seeks to investigate the incidence of psychiatric casualties in 1 Commonwealth Division during the Korean War. It had been hypothesized tha t these casualties were unusually low compared with earlier conflicts. Casu alty returns and psychiatric reports were analyzed and showed that the war fell into two phases determined by the intensity of combat, which, in turn, influenced the nature of the psychiatric disorders encountered. Rates of a cute combat stress were closely correlated with battle casualties, although not with total psychiatric admissions or nonbattle injuries. The limitatio ns imposed on the psychiatric liaison service by the medical organization s uggested that the incidence of psychosomatic cases, including cold injury, may have been unintentionally underreported.