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But it is their determination to see it through that is making the work go fast. The airfield is nearly ready. And as I have said, the planes keep coming in. I hope soon to go myself to China to fly one of those planes. To borrow a phrase from one of our guerrilla fighter songs, I'd like to do just as they're doing: "go to the rear of the enemy and give him a kick in the pants."

But planes aren't the only thing that my people are desperately in need of. In fact, the most pressing need, and one which you can under-stand easily, is the great need of medical relief. Very few operations are performed these days with ether. It costs too much, and besides that there is only a small amount available. As you know, most of Free China's supplies reach Chungking by way of the Burma Road. It is very crowded, and certain shipments of war supplies, and essential equipment have priority over such things as ether. But aside from that fact, it still remains that in Free China there is very little money for the most essential things. 

Hospitals are being improvised in empty air raid caves, and old deserted temples. School children and college students act as nurses and stretcher bearers after classes. Everyone is mobilizing to help. But here is where we are stuck without help from the outside: we haven't as much as cotton gauze for bandages in some places. And elsewhere there are no surgical instruments with which to operate - only dull knives. 

In some towns and cities children are dying from malnutrition because crops and farms have been burned and destroyed. We are trying to counter-act the ravages of hunger by providing these unhappy people with vitamins and other concentrates to round out their meagre rations. We need money to do this with. We need ambulances and mobile operating units for the battlefields