Here in America we have a phenomenon called workplace violence. Generally an employee who believes (s)he was disenfranchised of an entitlement, or right, or perceives him/herself as wrongfully treated, builds up resentment and then one day acts out by seeking self-justice. Indications cited include: fascination with other incidents of workplace violence, identifies as the person who committed the act, hatred of manager/supervisor/co-workers, makes comments like, "They deserved it." Other comments could be along the line of, "If they don't do _____, something will happen" or "They're going to get it/payback." Additional characteristic may include fascination with weapons (note: there are many who study weapons but this alone does not indicate they are predisposed towards violent acts. If remarks are reported, there can be timely intervention and maybe even termination. Trouble in the past is that while many heard veiled threats, no one reported it. Anyway, here's an example that Lord Lovat mentions in his book March Past! (page 168): Now if he blew up the truck, that would be a truck bomb that predates the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Anyway, the St. Nazaire Raid was short of sappers and he was allowed to go and was captured. Note: Here in America we have another phenomenon where "Coach" gets his star athletes out of trouble. Starts in high school, continues into college and the athlete develops a mindset that he is untouchable. Coach will always rescue him and Coach is better than an attorney/barrister
Riter, Here in the UK we often get media coverage of public space shootings, e.g. the Manhattan murder of a medical insurance employee. Sadly workplace shootings possibly get less coverage, though we know it happens. School or college shootings get coverage. We know the USA can be a violent place and seemingly reluctant to take more steps to reduce the risk. A good number involve mental health issues, though some - notably at schools - are just evil IMHO. Unsure if the "coach" issue exists here, as I don't follow any sports.
Psychotropic medications which make users homicidal or suicidal play a huge role in many of the school shootings. The media here won't report it because about 70% of their advertising revenue comes from Big Pharmaceuticals. "Ask your doctor if insert the name-of-the-drug here is right for you."
So does access to automatic weapons, social media and various other factors. How does this relate to WW2?
Because of a number of post-office involved shootings, the saying for workplace violence in the '90s was, "Going postal!" At conferences the US Post Office tried to polish its image by asserting the ratio of violence to the number of employees was very low and that the Post Office was one of the safest place to work at. To this day the USPS hires unqualified people to managerial positions (DEI bovine feces hiring) and I can see where these DEI bullies backs a person into a corner and they lose it. There's a saying, "When a man loses everything and has nothing to lose, they lose it." The equivalent Chinese saying was, "You may execute a gentleman, but you must never humiliate one." Concur that social media and the media (movies 'n music) influence violence and Lt. Col. David Grossman who wrote the book, On Killing, cited music and media and video games as contributing factors in his sequel, Stop Teaching Our Children To Kill. BTW, access to automatic weapons is very restricted in America. I think the 4 Commando officer was a typical athlete mindset. Accustomed to being feted with a very strong sense of entitlement and when punished, a sense of unjust treatment. Per Lord Lovat he was captured on a raid. Went to one website but couldn't ID the officer.
Maybe. It seems a long bow to draw from a paragraph or two though. Plenty of men played union then at school and club level and enjoyed continuing to play it in the military. Not professional athletes like today. Other possibilities are that he was just mad, or made himself such a problem child that he would eventually get moved on because he just didn't want to be there. Are you sure that he can't be identified from among the ex-Royal Engineer officers captured at St. Nazaire? He must have had some demolition training.
Here's one 4 Commando offficer who was sapper trained. Except for not being captured, 4 Commando Capt. Harold Hammond Pennington was killed. From Commando Veterans Archive | ͏ I found:
I think if you were to investigate further you would need to identify the incident through war diaries and local newspapers ( Lovat hints that the local population weren't impressed). Then work backwards from there through individual service records. I cannot imagine that incident like that would have escaped some formal military punishment. Note that lovat mentions three rugger blues who played for commando.
Waddell - I've done research in the American National Archives and the Library of Congress, but never in the UK. how would one go about locating and reading war diaries and service records in the UK? Sniper Harry Furness' files won't be open for a few more years and that would be fun to look into. Note: I'm not up to international travel anymore and don't even like travelling in Estados Unidos (United States).