"The British didn't like us very well because we paid all these people more than they ever did." (Video Interview, 26:18)

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.