At Cairo the Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek were the first to arrive, flying in from Chungking aboard a four-engined U.S. transport plane. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, with their separate parties, traveled to Africa by ship, made the last leg of the trip by plane.
Tenants had been cleared out of the fashionable Mena House hotel, out near the Pyramids, and troops moved in, setting up barbed-wire barricades around an area of three square miles. When the President drove in, his limousine, with curtains drawn, was led by two motorcycle out riders, two jeeps carrying four soldiers with submachine guns at the ready, a command car mounting a machine gun.
Big Brass. The top staffs settled down in villas and houses surrounding the hotel. There were 34 villas altogether, divided into seven "defensive zones." Around them bristled anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, pillboxes, gun emplacements, fire-watcher towers.
Heading the U.S. delegation were the joint chiefs of staff: Admiral Leahy, General Marshall with a party of 15 officers, the Navy's Admiral King with six, Air Forces General Hap Arnold with eleven. For the Service Forces, Lieut. General Brehon Somervell brought a staff of nine. Army, Navy, Air had separate groups. General Eisenhower came up from Algiers; Lieut. General Stilwell and Major General Chennault flew in from China.
Britain's contingent was even bigger. China's delegation was small by comparison: ten officers headed by General Shang Cheng, Director of Foreign Affairs of the National Military Council; Chiang Kai-shek acted only as head of his political mission, consulting with Roosevelt and Churchill on general questions but attending none of the military discussions.
Sons and Daughters. The Chiangs were virtually inseparable, Madame acting as interpreter for her husband. Afternoons they strolled hand in hand in the gardens of their villa and talked over the day's events.
Churchill brought along his daughter, Mrs. Vic Oliver (full title: Section Officer Sarah Oliver, WAAF), as aide-de-camp and hostess. Trim in her blue uniform, she stunned a group of important British naval officers (who had not recognized her) by saying crisply: "You can't have any drinks before noon."
Robert Hopkins came with his father and acted as semiofficial photographer for the party, sharing this task with Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who had hustled down from Italy. The President's son-in-law, Major John Boettiger, left his AMG job in Italy, appeared in Cairo.
The bar on the hotel's main floor did a rush business from 9 a.m. to midnight. Scotch ran out the first night, but there was no repetition of that disaster; the Government hospitality fund had shipped 35 cases out from Britain, also provided 500,000 cigarets and 1,250 cigars.
Formal entertaining ranged from small teas to elaborate dinners; President Roosevelt gave a Thanksgiving Day feast, with turkey and cranberries. The President and Churchill found time near the end of the Conference to visit the Sphinx. President Roosevelt wore a blue-grey suit most of the time; Churchill varied between a set of his zippered coveralls and a dazzling white sharkskin number, with a five-gallon cowboy hat.