PSYCHOLOGIC SCARS REMAIN 50 YEARS AFTER DIEPPERAID, STUDY OF CANADIAN VETERANS FINDS

Tom Spears

It wasn't until Lynne Beal was ateenager that she learned her fa-

ther had been captured in the disas-trous Canadian raid on Dieppe,France, on Aug. 19, 1942. RonaldBeal, who had been a private in theRoyal Regiment of Canada, nevertalked to his family about his armydays or his experiences as a prisonerof war.

Years later, Lynne Beal, PhD,would learn that her father's silenceon the subject was typical of Dieppeveterans. Her recent study of the sol-diers who landed on Dieppe'sbeaches (Beal AL: Post-traumaticstress disorder in prisoners of warand combat veterans of the Diepperaid: a 50-year follow-up. Can J Psy-chiatry 1995; 40: 177-184) tells of agroup of men who suffered in si-lence, many of them dying withoutever learning that they had suffered

Tom Spears is a freelance writer living in Ottawa.

for half a century from the wide-spread condition known today aspost-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD). Now the veterans hope thather work will help them win greaterofficial recognition of their condi-tion, as well as disability pensionsfrom Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC).

The study by Beal, who is chiefpsychologist with the East YorkBoard of Education in suburbanToronto, is not only the story of the4100 Dieppe survivors but also astory of discovery in an ordinaryCanadian family.

The men she surveyed have beenliving with unsettling memories andsymptoms of anxiety and post-trau-matic stress for 50 years, and themost troubling fact for Beal is thatnone knew what was wrong withthem. "No one ever explained tothem that any normal person withnormal human emotions would betotally distressed by the experience

they had,"U she said in an interview.'The veterans never had their prob-lems diagnosed - they all thoughtthey were crazy.`

To make things worse, they didn'ttalk to each other about their trou-bles. Each man thought his night-mares, gastrointestinal problems andother symptoms were unique to him.

"The way traumatic memorieswork is you really put huge amountsof energy all the time into selectivelyforgetting them," says Beal. "You don'treally talk about the worst things.Once you do, these traumatic memo-ries you've been suppressing comeflooding right back over you. It's verydifficult to cope. This is why you'llsee the veterans on RemembranceDay or VE-Day choking back tears.The onset is extremely fast, and it isprovoked by anything that's relatedto your memory of the trauma.

"So they haven't talked about it,and because they haven't released thetraumatic memory they have had alot of PTSD. Worse than that, Ithought: My God, these guys havenever been treated."

The Dieppe veterans, especiallythose who were captured and whosuffered through 33 months of captiv-ity, beatings and malnutrition, couldhave benefited from psychotherapy.However, because their stress disorderwas not recognized at the time, theywere never given a chance to bringtheir most painful memories to thesurface, to face them, and to learn tolive with the memories without painand anxiety. 'They could have had abetter life," she says. It is not too late

1324 CAN MED ASSOC J * leW NOV. 1995; 153 (9)

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to help the survivors, she adds, butunfortunately most of the men havealready died.

Beal said her study, conducted bya questionnaire sent to 276 men in1992, 50 years after the raid, is thefirst to track post-traumatic stressover half a century. Several studieshave followed men over 40 years,some from WW 11 and some fromthe Korean conflict.

American studies of former prison-ers of war (PoWs) foundPTSD in 55.1% of formerprisoners of the Japaneseand in 55.7% of PoWsheld in Europe (Zeiss RA,Dickman HR: PTSD 40years later: incidence andperson-situation correlatesin former PoWs. J Clin Psy-chol 1989; 45(1): 80-87).Beal argues that the federalgovernment and militaryshould pay greater atten-tion to the psychologicsymptoms of veterans re-turning from both warsand peacekeeping mis-sions.

"Dieppe PoWs have ashigh an incidence of EPTSD as American PoWsheld by the Japanese andothers," she wrote in theCanadian Journal of Psychia-try. "The incidence ofPTSD in Dieppe non-PoWs is also astonishinglyhigh."1

In the US, the experi-ence of Vietnam veteransled to extensive research,broad clinical services andfinancial benefits for ex-PoWsthrough the Veterans Administration,wrote Beal, but in Canada recogni-tion has been lacking.The symptoms Beal found in

Dieppe veterans include:Anxiety: 68% of former PoWsand 39% of non-PoWs who an-swered Beal's questionnaire re-ported anxiety.

* Among Dieppe veterans, gas-trointestinal problems werefound in 61% of former PoWsand 22% of non-PoWs.

* Severe headaches were being ex-perienced by 41% of ex-PoWsand 22% of non-PoWs.Other symptoms included depres-

sion, feelings of helplessness and iso-lation, confusion, suicidal thoughts,duodenal ulcers and the inability touse words to describe emotions.

Dr. Lynne Beal and her father, Ronald

Many also expressed guilt at surviv-ing the raid and captivity. (On themorning of the raid, 907 of the ap-proximately 5000 Canadian troopswere killed in action.)

Ronald Beal, who had been under-age when he enlisted, took hisdaughter and other family membersback to Dieppe in 1992 and showedthem the wall on the beach where he

and his companions were captured orkilled. "He re-enacted the battle forus in between choking back thetears," his daughter recalls.

Her study opened Ronald Beal'seyes. He was one of many veteranswho assumed he was alone in hislasting reactions to the raid and hiscaptivity. Like many other ex-sol-diers, he had never talked about thesubject. "You tend to push it back,"he explained in an interview. "It's

something you feel you- have to deal with yourself.

*A^8.... 8It was a relief to knowthat you weren't aloneand that you were able totalk to others about it."He recalls being "short

tempered" and bad hu-moured for years, describ-ing himself as a no-non-sense father who was hardon his children. He didn'tintend to be that way, hesays but the frayed nervesbetrayed him. He says hisdaughter "couldn't under-stand why I would be soemotional, why I wouldsee something on TV thatdealt with the war and fallapart - I'd be a basketcase." For Beal, remember-ing the war was like reliv-ing the experiences.He says he recognizes

the same behaviour inveterans who fought inItaly, Holland, Asia andother theatres of war dur-ing WW 11. Now presi-dent of the Dieppe Veter-ans and Prisoners of War

Association, he says his organizationhas applied twice to the SenateCommittee on Veterans Affairs fordisability pensions based on PTSD.They say something in the range of10% to 15% of a full disability pen-sion would be fitting.VAC says many of the veterans al-

ready receive disability pensionsbased on psychologic trauma, but of-

CAN MED ASSOC J * NOV. 1, 1995; 153 (9) 1325

ten it is not labelled as PTSD. Manymen are classified as having chronicanxiety disorder, neurosis or depres-sion, says Dr. FranWois Deziel ofVAC. Pensions for these problemsusually amount to between 10% and30% of a full disability pension, or upto about $5000 annually. He says 92of the 440 Dieppe PoWs still listedin VAC records already receive a par-tial disability pension based on somepsychiatric condition, although theseconditions are not listed as PTSD.All 440 receive compensation forhaving been prisoners, and some get

special allowances for clothing, helpin the home, or other benefits. Theaverage monthly payment to DieppePoWs is $I 199.

Deziel says ex-PoWs should haveno difficulty in making a claim forpsychologic damage. 'There's a gen-eral acceptance that if someone hada psychological disorder and hadbeen a PoW of the Germans orJapanese, then the PoW experiencewas probably the cause," he says.

Unfortunately, it is too late to getextra help for most Dieppe veterans.Of the 5000 Canadians who landed

on the beaches of Dieppe in 1942,Beal estimates that only 700 to 800are still alive.

Three years ago, Beal's chapter ofthe Dieppe Veterans Association,representing Ontario and WesternCanada, had about 1400 members.Today it has 524.

Still, Beal figures he and othershave gained by learning about theirproblems in the past few years, as hashis daughter. "My daughter," he says,"has a better understanding of whyher father was the way he was duringher childhood." a

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