User:Sesameboi/Cairo Conference

November 21–22
On Saturday, November 20, 1943, Stilwell first arrived in Cairo, and on Sunday, November 21, Chiang arrived with his wife, the First Lady Soong Mei Ling, several hours before Churchill, who arrived shortly after noon. Churchill arrived in Alexandria Harbor aboard the HMS Wilhelm and then flew to Cairo. Churchill invited Chiang and his wife to dinner and then brought Chiang to the map room to brief him on the status and planning of British forces in the various theatres of war. Roosevelt crossed the Atlantic on the battleship USS Iowa and arrived in Tunis that day on the Air Force One from Oran (modern-day Algeria) to meet General Eisenhower. That day, Stilwell met with Chiang, Marshall, Hurley, and General Blaine Somerville. Roosevelt arrived on Monday, November 22, and that afternoon, Chiang paid a visit to Roosevelt with Soong and Churchill. That evening, Churchill, Roosevelt, and their aides held a preliminary meeting. John Patton Davies, Second Secretary of the US Embassy in Chongqing, sent a memorandum to Roosevelt against the use of US troops to help the British, Dutch, and French rebuild their colonial empires by pointing out the levels of corruption and incompetence of the Chinese National Army and suggesting the value of opening an overland line of communication to China from northern Burma.