27/05/2026
After deep research through wartime medical records, U.S. Army Medical Department archives, and historical accounts from the China-Burma-India Theatre, an important but largely forgotten discovery emerges — hidden within the jungles of Namgoi once stood one of the earliest frontline medical lifelines of the Ledo Road campaign. Long before the road reached Burma, wounded soldiers, malaria patients, engineers, and exhausted laborers were already being treated here under extremely primitive wartime conditions.
In early 1943, the 151st Medical Battalion of the U.S. Army Medical Department established a 150-bed Station Hospital at Namgoi, approximately 30 miles from Ledo Base Section No. 3. Positioned beside the muddy and unfinished highway, the camp was built almost entirely from locally constructed “bashas” — bamboo-framed structures with thatched roofs and dirt floors — reflecting the harsh realities of wartime frontier conditions in the Patkai region.
Under the command of Colonel York N. Pitkin of the Medical Corps, with Major John T. Smiley serving as Executive Officer, the Namgoi facility operated as a vital clearing and evacuation center. The hospital received wounded and critically ill personnel moving back from the forward sectors of northern Burma and the advancing road construction camps.
The camp primarily treated Chinese troops of the Chinese Army in India attached to the Northern Combat Area Command, alongside American engineers, transport personnel, and local laborers working under extreme jungle conditions. Disease quickly became one of the deadliest enemies in the theatre. Malaria, dysentery, exhaustion, and tropical infections spread rapidly through the camps and road construction zones. Namgoi became an important center for anti-malaria enforcement and medical prophylaxis directed by senior theatre medical authorities, including Colonel John M. Tamraz and Colonel Williams.
As the Burma campaign intensified in 1944, the medical burden on Namgoi expanded dramatically. During the monsoon offensives, the 14th Evacuation Hospital established a major branch installation at Namgoi, transforming the area into a large emergency treatment complex handling continuous casualty flows from the front lines, including wounded personnel evacuated from the fighting involving Merrill’s Marauders and Allied forces advancing toward Myitkyina.
Because the camp was constructed almost entirely from temporary bamboo bashas and other improvised wartime materials, no visible structural remains of the Namgoi Medical Camp survive today. However, historical records from the U.S. Army Medical Department and wartime accounts preserve the memory of this important medical installation that once stood along the Ledo Road during the Burma Campaign.
The story of Namgoi Medical Camp remains an important chapter in the forgotten medical history of the Ledo Road and the wider CBI Theatre.
