Novel about mystery illness at Pearl Harbor?

About a week back I stumbled onto an interesting post over at Goodreads in the "What's the Name of That Book" section. The poster is trying to ID a novel her grandfather read in the '50s about a malady that strikes a Pearl Harbor hospital a few days after the attack and causes coughing fits. He can't remember anything about the cover, but he says most of the book took place in the hospital and that it was quite popular the year it came out. Sound familiar to anyone?