CAIRO per ARVAL

Sept. 4, 1943. Per Arval Streadbeck.
(The “Skipper’ piloted our plane to and from Cairo. I would like to share with you, his write-up of our trip.)
We are back from our trip to Cairo and it was absolutely wonderful. We saw so much and did so many things. We were to stay 3 days but the prop on #4 engine wouldn’t change pitch so we stayed 5 days. It was a long trip to get there. As we approached Cairo we saw first a long dark line out on the horizon of the desert. We thought it must be the shore line of the Mediterranean. Fifteen minutes later we crossed over a line of small lakes with water the darkest color of purple you could ever imagine. Just a few bushes were around the lakes and then sand for as far as you could see. Fifteen minutes from there we could see the delta of the Nile out to the North, and to the south the long thin line of deep green on each side of the river. There on the West bank we picked up the pyramids and we flew straight for them, letting down to about 1,000 feet. The largest pyramid is450 feet high so we were just a little over twice as high. We circled more than once because I couldn’t see the Sphinx which is much smaller than I expected. There were some pyramids down by Memphis, or where Memphis was. We flew down to see them also. Then we flew over Cairo, found our airport and landed. We were anxious to leave the plane and get started. The army bus was just leaving, but we hurried and got on and rode to Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, and found our hotel. When I say our crew it means minus Lt. Juster - and plus Doc Hall, Lt. Lyons and Lt. Lamoreaux. The first thing we did was bathe in real hot water in a tub. Imagine hot water to shave with too. Sometimes we bathed twice a day it felt so good. After taking a taxi the six miles into Cairo, we found that an electric train ran between the two towns for 10 cents, even less for 2nd class. A piaster is one-hundredth of an Egyptian pound and a pound is worth $4. The taxi cost $2. All the advertising signs are in 3 languages. English, French and Arabian, Shows are in English, with sub-titles in French and Arabic., on an extra screen underneath. Sometimes Greek also. The food was good all but the milk. There are no cows in Egypt but water buffalo. The milk has a very dark brown flavor. On the way to the pyramids we stopped at the bazaars. The shops are small but richly furnished. Fancy boxes line the shelves on the walls.


The Great Pyramid of Cheops. The largest of the three at Giza, is the best known pyramid in the world - it took 20 years to build and 100,000 workmen working all the time. It is 450 feet tall and its base covers thirteen acres of ground. (that is larger than a square city block). Each one of its 2,300,000 blocks weighs two and one half tons, giving a total of 85 million cubic feet of stone (someone said this is enough to build a 4ft. Wall, I foot thick, around France. This building was meant to be a tomb. But, the rulers must have been mad, because the entire nation worked for over 100 years for this one purpose - that of building pyramids.
We climbed up to the entrance and to the “Robbers Tunnel” a 2nd means of entering made by robbers, about 200 years after the Pyramid was sealed - but there was little to see - a long passage and empty rooms with a few carvings. The pyramids are not smooth now as they were originally. The 2nd pyramid, that of Cephren, is still capped with the original casing but the Great Pyramids and the Mycerinus Pyramids casings have been removed to build Mosques and other buildings in Cairo. We walked down to the Sphinx. These things date back to about 3700 B.C.!
On our way back from Cairo to Tunis we laughed nearly all the way. We had engine trouble. The C.O. had wanted a new supply of liquor. We had all wanted the trip. He had sent along Lt. Lyons to buy $6,000 worth of booze. We couldn’t get over how funny it would be if we had to throw out the whole $6,000 worth all across the Libyan desert, to lighten the plane.