homesickness

  • Tango Boat Dancers by Charles Frankhauser

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    From the earliest of times, leaders encouraged groups of people to accomplish difficult tasks. Issues associated with maintaining high levels of morale were critical to the success of the tasks at hand. During the 1930’s, an Admiral seeks advice from a psychologist in regard to maintaining high levels of morale among sailors serving long tours at sea. A male and two female naval officers lead a team in a clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of a doctor’s recommended cures to raise morale and cure homesickness.

    A German U-Boat Admiral assigns a young officer to develop a plan to eliminate depression and homesickness among sailors on training missions near the American coast prior to WWII. The Admiral gives the officer no specifics in terms of how to develop a test plan based on a few remarks of a renowned psychologist in Berlin. The Lieutenant is assigned two female Lieutenants as members of his first command. The command is ordered to submit a test plan for approval based on the psychologist’s vague unclear remarks to his friend the Admiral.

    One Lieutenant is the psychologist’s daughter; the other Lieutenant was a chorus girl with previous experience running an escort service for high-ranking party members. The male Lieutenant and the psychologist’s daughter are attracted to one another; the experienced escort member of the team guides the other team members in learning the basics of brothel management at a brothel run by her family in Hamburg.

    A plan is developed to hire contractors from Hamburg to staff a boat designed as a treatment center for depressed sailors. A team consisting of three naval Lieutenants and five contractors travel by cruise ship to Key West, Florida to work undercover in a bar while conducting homesick treatment tests at sea during rendezvous with U-Boats.

    Specific tests are ordered for each patient as prescribed from the psychologist’s office using shortwave radio from Berlin. The importance of validating the treatment theory is given top priority with unlimited support provided from the German General Staff.