I recently went to the shooting range and didn't have my ear protection so had to make do with the foam plugs.
After 200 rounds of .45 and .9 mm my right ear was deaf for about 5 hours.
That got me thinking of the hundreds of thousands of rounds of larger caliber rounds fired day after day in the trenches on top of the hundreds of thousands of artillery shells exploding during large battles such as Verdun.
How did the different armies deal with this? Were a great number of Veterans of WW1 left deaf or hard of hearing? Was there a public response to account for this (like a means of making special consideration for those who lost hearing during the war the way the ADA accommodates disabled people with ramps.)
The short story is that WWI soldiers did not wear hearing protection, and yes, many, many of them suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus. Part of the issue was that the ear and the damage of noise exposure was not well understood at that time.
WWII actually spurred much of the research that led to a lot of what we now know about the ear and hearing loss. The government invested heavily in hearing research after WWII. A lot of modern hearing technology can be linked directly to research done in the late 40s and 50s. The National Center for Research in Auditory Rehab is at the VA in Portland, Oregon, where much hearing research is still conducted.
Hearing loss is still a major problem for veterans. Even the best hearing protection is often not enough to stop damage from explosions and the like. The military regularly experiments with novel protection measures, like mega doses of magnesium before combat. The VA is probably the only health service in the country that provides free (top of the line) hearing aids to its patients - specifically because it's such a rampant issue for veterans.
Edit: I meant spurred, not spurned.
Hello everyone,
In this thread, there have been a large number of incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments - especially ones that start with "When I go shooting" - and as such, they were removed by the mod-team. Please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed.
Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!
Bit of an add on question but does anyone know about how this issue was dealt with during some time around the Napoleonic Wars? Being in those straight lines volleying at the enemy for hours with those rifles must have been hell on the ears right?
A similar question with responses which you may find helpful to your questions.
Edit: Grammar
Oh bother, my IFTTT trigger doesn't seem to be working!
The comments here are largely quite good. I would add mainly to the public response portion by pointing to an undergraduate thesis on the topic. It's Civil War, not WWI, but it's about how the government and media responded to the large number of veterans with hearing loss.
The Social Integration of Civil War Veterans with Hearing Loss: The Roles of Government and Media (PDF link)