22 November 1943 - 26 November 1943
Cairo Conference
room Egypt
people Winston Churchill Chiang Kai-shek Louis Mountbatten President Franklin Roosevelt Joseph 'Vinegar Joe' Stillwell
This photograph shows Allied leaders US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek discussing the reconquest of Burma at their summit in Cairo. Also at the conference were Madame Chiang Kai-shek (far right in this photo), the new Allied Supreme Commander for South East Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and his deputy General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell.
The Chinese pressed for an aggressive invasion of Burma (by British, Indian, and American as well as Chinese forces), the early capture of Mandalay, and building of an India-China all-weather road (later to be known as the "Stillwell Road"). The British and the Americans, however, were at the time more focused on "Operation Overlord" (the Allied landing in Normandy) and decided to postpone plans for an amphibious assault on Rangoon ("Plan Z", later "Operation Dracula"). These decisions and others - taken in Cairo and earlier in Quebec - were critical in shaping Burma's post-1945 political landscape.