The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-12-15
Waterbury Nurse Returns From Million Dollar Trip, AdUentureS
Served With Army hedleal Corps 10 Burma Jungle

Last June Amer3can troops were aaopping up the bloody, bornb-cfattr- ed island of OkinawA and the Japs were being warned by Washington that 10000 ton raids would descend on rojog empire before the New Year. British troops Nere crashing enemy lines Ga Southern China. Bof- Dco and Malay, The Japs. stili obdu- Tate. determined and fighting hard on an fronts. threatened io convert the Allied Naval Air force Into su!- Cloe corps with piloted bomb-earry- tng balloons
 That entire month and far Into July. the General u S. s F. B. Freeman. with every deck damned with American and Chinese dlpio- mats. American troops. doctors. and nurses, was ekine her way through eDemy-lnfestcd of the vast Pacinc, bound for Calcutta. India. For 37 long. Jittery days and nights. the passengers. numbering 3.900, walked decks. scanned the horizon for Jap ships. and wondered whether they would eventually view the spires Of Calcutta. Heavy conveys escorted the Freeman around the Jap-held islands Of Java. Sumatra and Bor- nea and through the Indian ocean.
 To Jnngle Hospital
 Among the passengers was It. Violet Stokes, U. S. Army Nurse corps, and well-known local nurse, assigned to the l4th Evacuation hos pitai deep in the Burma Jungle, in the vicinity of the famed Ledo- Stillwen road. There It. Stokes with corps of 40 doctors and 60 nurses, spent six months during the mon soon season tending 800 Chinese sol- diers, chronic casualties of the bat tie Of Burma. Though the majority of the patients were stricken with paralysis or osteomylitis from wounds, the valiant hospital corps also fought daily to ward off the jungle diseases of malaria, colera, plague, yellow fever, and the dread ed typhus for which no known cure has been discovered.
 The attractive. blonde nurse re- turned to her home on Wheeler road, Middlebury, Wednesday even- ing, following a 17,000 mile flight from her jungle outpost across h. dia, Arabia, Persia, Egypt, Tripoli, French Morocco, the Mediterran- can and the Atlantic.
 The globe -circling servicewoman reports her sojourn in the Far East was an experience worth a mill lion dollars but the most valuable attribute of the entire trip is her newly-acquired appreciation of the American way of life and democ- racy.
 Though she had viewed the won- drous Tai Mahal, the spires of Bagdad, the ancient lands of Per Sia, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the romantic Sphinx, Pyramids and Nile during the past two weeks, the im- pression that cannot be erased from her mind is the pitiful plight of the millions of peoples of the Far East starving, begging and suffering through lifetime rarely extending beyond 30 years.
 It. Stokes asserted she will never forget 8 single moment of those days the doctors and nurses spent tn Calcutta while awaiting trans portation to the evacuation hospital.
 God Bless America"
 Everywhere we went we said God bless America countless times an hour," she declared. The hospital corps found themselves constantly mortified at the sight of the home less, diseased, masses sleeping in the streets and eating on curbs, when ever they were successful in beg ging or pilfering food. Men, women, and children dropped dead on the street from lack of medical care be- fore the eyes of the well-trained | doctors and nurses, and 1t also was evident to corps that millions more would meet the same end before suppressed, ignorant India would | find relief.
 Tt was particularly difficult to l bear since we could have done so much with the proper medical sup plies and food" the nurse said.
 But far more intolerable to the | hospital corps was the lack of sani- tation that existed everywhere in | the Far East. Both doctors and | nurses cringed when they viewed | the disposition made of the dead. In | a country where infant mortality | reaches record-breaking peaks, the bodies of dead infants are thrown