Lingering Fever

During 1945, the author found herself in the monsoon-drenched jungles of Assam, caring for soldiers in the China-Burma-India theater of war. Nothing in her training had prepared her for the tropical diseases or the thatched-roof hospital where men spat on the floor, rats were pervasive, and patients used handguns to chase gigantic cockroaches (and wereas likely to sell their medicine as swallow it).
The experience was made tolerable by Nurse Camp’s romance with one of the airmen who flew the Hump, supplying O.S.S. troops behind Japanese lines and carrying General Joseph Stilwell’s Chinese troops to fight the battle of North Burma. She accompanied her future husband on some of his missions. Based in part on letters she wrote to her parents, this is the poignant story of one nurse’s experience in World War II.

LaVonne Telshaw Camp lives in Moorestown, New Jersey.

LaVonne Telshaw Camp
Format: softcover (5.5 x 8.5)
Pages: 184
Bibliographic Info: photos, index
Copyright Date: 2012 [1997]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7285-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0326-1
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword by Connie L. Slewitzke, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Retired      1
Introduction      5

1 AT WAR IN THE FAR EAST      7
2 OUR ASSAM DRAGON HOME      11
3 A DATE WITH RED      18
4 WHERE IT ALL STARTED      25
5 ACROSS THE BLUE PACIFIC      32
6 THE 14TH EVACUATION HOSPITAL      39
7 NIGHT DUTY ON THE WARD      50
8 HORSEBACK RIDING IN THE JUNGLE      54
9 A VISIT WITH RED      58
10 A TRIP TO CALCUTTA      71
11 SHOPPING FOR BOOTS WITH A BRITISH COLONEL      79
12 OVER THE HUMP TO CHINA      89
13 A VISIT FROM A JUNGLE BEAST      105
14 A SURREPTITIOUS FLIGHT TO HSIAN, CHINA      113
15 MALAISE AT THE 20TH GENERAL HOSPITAL IN LEDO      120
16 A REGULAR ARMY NURSE AT THE 142ND GENERAL HOSPITAL      130
17 LIFE IN CALCUTTA      137
18 RED STOPS BY      143
19 A NEW YEAR’S EVE ESCAPADE      152
20 LEFT BEHIND IN INDIA      157
21 GOING HOME      163

Epilogue      169
Index      175

“a wonderful picture of the living conditions at an evacuation hospital in the jungle…. [Camp] writes colorfully about the Chinese patients, Army life, and her impressions of the setting and the culture…a welcome addition to the collection of works on women’s experiences in World War II”—H-Net Review; “an amazing and well-written narrative…highly recommended”—World War II Air Commando; “a model for personal narratives: competently and interestingly written, fair to her subjects, honestly introspective, carefully researched…. Well illustrated”—The Cellar Book Shop; “every reader, male or female, nurse or patient, will be engrossed in this woman’s war experiences”—CBIVA Sound-Off.