Man Down Meaning

(Can we verify(+) this sense?) (idiomatic) To lose courage or cause to lose courage.

Example: To reduce in manpower.
1913, Fiji. Legislative Council, Debates, page 36:
  The Hon. HENRY MARKS: We are dealing with the Supplementary Estimates, and included in the Estimates I find Mr. Mortle mans down here again.
1973, Canadian Labour - Volume 18, page 10:
  The employer is usually attempting to cut out manning down on a particular piece of equipment, and they have a meeting with us to try to get some kind of an agreement.
2011, Denise A. Bates, House of Bull: Book Three, ISBN 1452011672, page 392:
  These men have gotten word that the fort we left, Ridgeway, is manning down.
1901, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 171:
  Ministers and a good many of their supporters worked in relays, and had so manned down the feeble and numerically small Opposition till we had not strength nor mental energy enough to resist.
1924, George Allan England, The White Wilderness, page 160:
  A famous champion, he; super-expert in the art of "manning down" his opponent, and sometimes in the heat of battle glowing with such an ardour of excitement that he would make wide jumps, quite against every rule, and sweep off pieces wholesale.
2013, Alexei Auld, Tonto Canto Pocahontas:
  Normally, I'd psych myself out of approaching her. I looked at her, trying to find something that reinforced my manning down.