"The British didn't like us very well because we paid all these people more than they ever
did." (Video Interview, 26:18)
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Geraldine Lillian Edwards Boock
Geraldine "Jerry" Boock in uniform
War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Nurse Corps Service Location: Fort Lewis, Washington (basic training); "Torency" General Hospital, Palm Springs, California; 142 General Hospital, Calcutta, India; Fort Dix, New Jersey; "McCormack" General Hospital, Pasadena, California Rank: First Lieutenant Place of Birth: **
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.