Used as a human guinea pig

By Dan Hilborn
Published March 13, 2004


For almost 60 years, Burnaby resident Al Little wondered what really happened to him during his short stint with the Canadian military in The Second World War.

He remembers volunteering for "special duties" and being assigned to a small army base in southern Alberta, and he remembers spending time afterwards in a Halifax military hospital.

But what happened in the weeks between those two assignments was always a mystery, until Little's brother found a book alleging that Canadian soldiers were used as human guinea pigs in one of the most secretive weapons testing programs in this country's history.

Three weeks ago, the federal government admitted it conducted mustard gas tests at CFB Suffield beginning in 1942. And last month, the office of the military ombudsman published a report calling for an official apology and $24,000 compensation for each of the soldiers who were subjected to the tests.

Little, who remembers nothing of his time in Suffield, but has military records that prove he was indeed posted at the base, said the proposed compensation could never make up for the years of stonewalling he faced at the hands of the federal government.

"It's not enough, but it's better than nothing," the 80-year-old Little told the Burnaby Now this week. "I think we should get more, but that would take two or three years to go through the courts.

"I don't know. I guess we'll have to take what they offer."

It was 1943 and the Second World War was raging when Little, then a 20-year-old farmer from a small town in Saskatchewan, signed up to join the Canadian war effort. He was posted to basic training in Regina and remembers signing up for a 'special project' that promised $1 per day extra pay, plus 10 days of holiday afterward.

Little has the pay stubs that prove he received the extra money. But he also has a six-inch-thick military medical file that documents the government's repeated attempts to dismiss his claims of serious injuries incurred during his short time at CFB Suffield.

"After years of secrecy and delay, it is time for the Department of National Defence to remedy the wrongs done during World War Two to Canadian soldiers who were subjects of chemical warfare experiments," begins the 15-page report issued on Feb. 19 by military ombudsman Andre Morin.

The report outlines the horrific conditions Little and an estimated 3,000 other soldiers endured during their time at Suffield, a small army base located just outside Medicine Hat, Alta.

"Some were made to stand in fields and turn their backs while planes rained chemicals down on them," says the report. "Some were told to crawl through bomb craters contaminated with mustard gas and then sit in their drenched uniforms for hours, breathing the vapours and letting the liquid score their skin."

The report also says that military doctors would sometimes refuse to treat the men for the chemical burns out of a desire to see the long-term effects of the tests.

"If all of this sounds incredible, it is only because of its rank indecency - it is unfathomable that this kind of thing would happen in this country today," says the ombudsman's report. "It is a shameful saga, a blot on our history."

The secret tests were first made public by former journalist turned politician John Bryden, who detailed what happened at Suffield in his mid-1980s book Deadly Allies: Canada's Secret War.

Little, who still has his military pay stubs and correspondence that prove he served at CFB Suffield during the war, does not remember anything that happened at the base.

After what appears to be a two-week stint at Suffield, Little was admitted to a military hospital in Alberta before being moved to a larger hospital in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. From there, military doctors repeatedly and aggressively dismissed his claims of serious problems with his lungs and other internal organs.

The military doctor reports were so dismissive and condescending that Little's family was originally reluctant to have their father speak to the media regarding his ordeal.

For instance, a June 1944 letter signed by a Dr. O.E. Rothwell and sent to the department of pensions and national health in Regina, claimed that Little's health complaints were of no consequence.

"He was sent to Yarmouth, N.S., but did not finish his basic training there as he had a flu and this was followed by measles and some other children's diseases," said the military doctor's letter.

"During the course of his further training he received a slight injury to his chest and complained a great deal of pain over the heart, but examination at that time did not reveal any cause for this, but he persisted on many occasions, complaining of gastric trouble which was decided to be purely functional dyspepsia. As a result of his further examination he was returned as unsuitable on account of mental stability low grade."

That letter was written despite an earlier medical examination that found Little suffering from an upper respiratory infection and eruptions on his face and trunk, plus a second assessment that described his symptoms as being "not suggestive of organic disease."

On June 19, 1944, six months after serving as a guinea pig for the military's secret testing of mustard gas, Pte. Al Little was discharged by the Canadian military because he was "unable to meet the required military physical standards." Despite the highly critical doctor's assessment, his conduct while in service was formally listed as "good."

And his health problems did not end with his discharge from the military.

Soon after his discharge from the military, Little moved to Burnaby where he met his wife Irene and began work at the White Pine lumber mill, where his health problems continued.

"Right after the army I developed a pain in the groin," Little said. "I know they (his new employer) had to send me home quite a few times because of the pain."

Doctors discovered Little had a shrunken testicle, which was surgically removed in 1956. However, the exact nature of that injury was never diagnosed.

And according to the ombudsman report, a 1991 study by the U.S. military found a "clear causal relationship" between mustard gas testing and sexual dysfunction plus a "suggested causal relationship" between exposure and reproductive dysfunction.

In addition, Little has suffered a lifetime of chromic lung problems, for which the military awarded him a 15 per cent pension in 1993.

His claims for the loss of his testicle and other injuries were dismissed as non-pensionable and described as "psychoneurosis and hypochondriasis."

"Have you ever seen a hypochondriac work for 30 years and rarely miss a day?" his wife said of the 11-year-old military pension review board assessment.

Now that Little has uncovered the truth about what happened 60 years ago at that small army base in southern Alberta, he is still reluctant to talk about what happened.

He admits that if it were not for the efforts of other people who suffered through the same ordeal, he probably would not have the opportunity to receive more adequate compensation for the injuries he suffered at the hands of the government.

"What good is it?" Little asked while sitting at his dining room table. "All these judges and stuff. It's bothersome and they make you feel like a fool."

And his wife wonders what life would have been like if the man she married was not subjected to some of the most horrific military tests ever conducted by the federal government.

"I just think Al would have gone a lot further in life if he didn't have all this done to him," she said.