World War II bomber pilot Roman Tritz, the last known survivor of a U.S. government program to lobotomize mentally ill combat veterans, died Friday at the age of 97. Mr. Tritz flew a B-17 Flying Fortress on 34 air raids over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe in the final year of the war. Soon after he returned to his native Wisconsin, he began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness that frightened his family. With his father’s consent, in 1953 a Veterans Administration surgeon cut holes on the sides of his head and severed neural...

Source: Wall Street Journal July 31, 2020 20:26 UTC