Richard G. Miller

June, 19.

Gen. Whang left yesterday in one of our planes for Chunking. He has been very patient up till now. We have been fooling around getting tied up with the British, and now we are about to be attached to this Middle East outfit.

So the General is going to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and get him to wire Franklin D. Maybe we'll get action then. Now we are waiting, for the Italian Fleet to stick its nose out again. And another satisfactory note is that each day brings better reports of both raids, if it keeps up, I'll be convinced we did a magnificent job. The placitude of Jerry to insist we did a lot in Romania a night before last.

All 12 of us went to Ismalia. Had dinner and several scotches and then decided to run off with the Colonel' s car to Cairo, some 80 miles away. Got there after a very wild ride, stayed in a palacial hotel, and then the boys got cold feet and we came back the next day early.

The Colonel was most upset and confined us for a while _ not for taking his car, but for the possibility of being in Cairo for an alert here. The major that told us there would be no alert, deserted our cause, so we will have to stand in the corner for a while.

Between Fayid and Ismalia, we cross 18 miles of rolling sand dunes - just an occasional oasis.

Gives me the impression of really being in Egypt. Between Ismalia and Cairo, there is a canal that is always crowded with the native "freighter" - a crude sail boat that is much like the ones that float the Nile. All the farming about here is, of course, by irrigation; They raise vegetables, much fruit (oranges and melons) and flax. Cairo had big potentialities ~ too bad we couldn't spend a few days there, put we'll get there yet. Another lad went to the hospital with malaria today.