Tuesday, 2 May

In the evening the Military Attaché, Guo, invited the heads of the British military delegation, General Burrows, Admiral Fisher the Canadian Military Attaché and others. The Canadian Military Attaché said that the German army is still strong and morale quite high. It is questionable whether the landing of British and American troops will promise victory, therefore he thought the European war would not end this year, but might end next year. He found many American resources and 60% to 70% of trucks were from United States in the Soviet Front line, so the United States’ contribution towards defeating Hitler’s Germany is significant. The British navy representative Admiral Fisher will be back in Britain to join the war at sea. He thought the American navy could not sail directly to the Chinese coast because Japan is quite powerful in the Philippines, the American navy would be under threat on the way. Therefore in his opinion Borneo should be occupied first, and the British navy should conquer Singapore first, then they will be able to reach China. If this is the case the war will not end soon. He brought me quite a few books from Britain which I will use to learn Russian. (Qian Tai bought the books for me.)