Site Ed. Note: As a lull in fighting took place in Italy on both the Adriatic coast and the road to Rome because of heavy rains, the front page reports that Churchill announced that Portugal had granted the British use of the Azores as an anti-submarine base while maintaining Portuguese neutrality in the war. The United States would not deploy any forces in the Atlantic islands.

Protection of the Azores from control by the Nazis as a launching point for U-boat attacks and potential attacks on South American and Caribbean nations had been an objective of the U.S. and Great Britain since FDR had declared a national emergency at the end of May, 1941. Now, the islands lay in the Allied arsenal for the duration--even if the Atlantic U-boat menace had been substantially abated.

From both France and Yugoslavia came reports of increasing violence and sabotage. In France, the Vichy government of Pierre Laval had authorized use of deadly force by the Mobile Guards to put down all forms of revolt. New repressive measures were also being implemented against Jews in France. In Yugoslavia, the Nazis, similar to the tactics used in Czechoslovakia and Poland, threatened to kill captured "hostages" in retaliation for sabotage. The edict included the threat to raze whole towns and villages as a deterrent to further revolt by the Partisan forces under the command of Tito.

For the seventh straight day, the Northwest African Air Force struck at Axis targets, this time hitting airdromes on the islands of Corfu, Crete, and Rhodes.

In the Pacific, the Australians were moving rapidly up the Ramu Valley on New Guinea, now within 45 miles of Madang, having advanced 30 miles since the drive's inception on September 18. The rapid advance had been effectuated by troop transport planes which deployed engineers to build or improve airstrips as each strategic point was taken, thus continually keeping supply lines short.

Count Carlo Sforza, former Italian Foreign Minister and anti-Fascist, returned to Italian soil in Sicily for the first time in twenty years after residing in exile in London. It was stated, however, that any potential for his collaboration with King Emanuele or Marshal Pietro Badoglio was out of the question.

On the domestic front, the Chamber of Commerce announced its support for a national sales tax instead of the increase in personal and corporate income taxes favored by the Treasury as a means of continuing to fund the increasing costs of war.

On the editorial page, "Pep Rallies" asserts that the 600 rallies scheduled to be held in Cologne during the ensuing weeks to bolster morale would have little impact on beleaguered Germans in the bomb-pocked city. Just as the bonfires preceding fall football games did not always produce victory, says the editorial, neither would these pep rallies in Germany significantly for long improve fading enthusiasm for the Nazi promise of tomorrow.

"Rome's Treasure" comments on the report out of London the previous week that the Nazis were looting the art treasures of Rome, finds it possibly salutary as the art could be restored to its rightful places after the war and the stealing of it for the nonce might at least protect it from the bombs. Florence and Venice were also likely targets for further Nazi art collecting.

"Two-Way Drys" finds that the McDougle Bill, enhancing punishment for habitual public drunkenness, plus the shortage of available liquor and high prices on that which was available had combined significantly to curtail Charlotte's court calendar for cases involving charges of public intoxication. Many of the heavy drinkers, it says, also were occupied either at work in war industries or in service--a comforting thought.

"New Mission" praises Myers Park Presbyterian Church for its decision to build a black church in a black section of the city without a church, finds it a magnanimous gesture of Christian brotherhood spanning the gulf of race relations in the community.

Raymond Clapper comments on the assessment by Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas of the secret report issued by the five Senators returning from the war fronts. Senator Capper had found the report to foreshadow a much longer war than previously anticipated, that the cooperation of both Britain and the Soviet Union was indispensable to victory.

Yet, criticism of both Allies abounded within the U.S., and understandably so, says Mr. Clapper.

In order to effect a better American public attitude toward these precious Allies and bring about a post-war state of cooperation with them, there had to be relaxation of post-war demands by both the British and Russians. In dealing with their empire demands, both nations should, suggested Mr. Clapper, look to the example set by the President in asking Congress for authority to grant full sovereignty to the Philippines as soon as practicable, and sooner than the previously fixed date of July 4, 1946.

Would that they had; they didn't. Neither did the Free French. The result was the Cold War.

Samuel Grafton finds it not surprising that the average worker was flitting about from war industry to war industry searching for the best wage of the moment, regardless of the benefit or not to the overall war effort. This egocentric attitude was only a natural response to the lack of post-war planning, opines Mr. Grafton, a sense that the government implicitly had told the worker that they would be on their own at war's end. Thus the incentive was to make as much as they could while the getting was good. Ditto for the manufacturers.

Drew Pearson looks again at the synthetic rubber shortage, the industry producing only about 50 to 60 percent of the required tire output, resulting in increased rationing of tires despite synthetic tire production having begun at the first of the year.

He also quotes Tom Dewey as stating that under no circumstances would he run for the presidency in 1944.

That is, unless he was nominated by his Party…

Among his bag of vignettes of the day, Mr. Pearson also relates that American soldiers stationed in Iran had found a method by which they could slip past the M.P.'s and get into town at night without being stopped. They donned burkas and pretended to be Iranian women.

There might have been unintended consequences, however, and hidden detriments in adopting such a disguise.

And, not reported on the front page of either this day or the day before, the Yankees completed their rout of the Cardinals in the World Series four games to one by winning the fifth game 2-0 on Monday, after on Sunday winning the first game in St. Louis 2-1. The outcome was the exact reverse of the 1942 Series between the two teams.