Ground Support (China-Burma-India: WWII's Forgotten Theater, Experiencing War, Stories from the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress)

Experiencing War: China-Burma-India (Stories from the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress)

Nurses, cryptographers, intelligence agents, Red Cross workers, and information officers existed in all theaters of World War II. But in the CBI, they had to adapt to unfamiliar cultures and keep reminding themselves that they were making a difference in winning the war against the Japanese.

“When you work in an Army hospital like we did you feel like the whole world is wounded, because that’s all you see all day.” (Video Interview, 1:16:29)

Geraldine “Gerry” Boock graduated from nursing school in 1944, and she and several of her classmates decided to join the war effort. One of her friends volunteered the two of them for overseas duty, and after six weeks at sea, she landed in Calcutta, where she worked with patients wounded or taken ill in the China-Burma-India Theater. She wasn’t immune to an occasional bout of dysentery; she also encountered a shifty snake charmer, and, on a moonlight visit to the Taj Mahal, an amorous British soldier. After the war ended, she stayed on in India until spring 1946 and in the Army until December of that year. Her last assignment was in a California hospital obstetrics ward, as different an experience as possible from her sojourn in India.

Go and experience
Geraldine Lillian Boock's story

Experience more stories of Ground Support

“There was always the threat hanging over our heads that we were going into China. That wasn’t eliminated until the A-bomb was dropped.” -- Abel Kessler

	“I never heard a Red Crosser complain... we were deeply infused with sense of patriotic dedication.” Virginia Claudon Allen's story		“I had not realized what a mountainous country China was...” Robert H. Haines' story
	“The soldiers were getting reports form their loved ones: ‘What are you doing there?’” Abel Kessler's story		“...It’s a time of your life when you’re really alive.” Walter L. Mess's story
	“... I was more interested in interacting with Indians than with other soldiers.” John Carson Rather's story		“It would get so humid, your shoes would rot overnight.” Henry James Ryskamp's story
	“You have no idea what the GIs are like in a place like that...” Marion Steinhilber's story

China-Burma-India: Ground Support

The Library of Congress
November 5, 2007

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