Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Fifth Army’s Third Infantry Division, comprised primarily of troops from the Pacific Coast of the United States, had successfully stopped the third counter-offensive launched by the Nazis in the thousand-yard stretch midway between Cisterna and Carroceto. The drive was said to have proved costly for the three divisions of Germans, the 26^th Motorized Division, the 114^th Jaeger, or Rifle, Division, and an infantry division. The drive ended Wednesday and no further activity was reported during the previous day. The losses included a hundred men of one company and nine tanks.

It was now estimated that Hitler had deployed 22 divisions into Italy. Weeks of bloody fighting appeared to lay ahead in the Anzio sector.

Snow, rain, and heavy wind limited action in the Cassino area to patrols.

American Flying Fortresses and Liberators attacked Littorio, Tiburtina, and Viterbo freight yards in the vicinity of Rome, in the fourth major raid on the Eternal City.

For the first time, American planes flew over Berlin, albeit without attacking, the object having been to have the fighters conduct a feint and draw enemy fire so that a large contingent of heavy bombers could attack targets in northwest Germany sans molestation.

The RAF had struck manufacturing facilities around Paris and Albert in France the night before.

It was disclosed by the Air Ministry that the RAF was now dropping six-ton bombs on selected targets, an increase of two tons over the previous maximum. The six-ton bombs were utilized in the raid on Albert the night before. It was pretty gross, man. You wouldn't want to see.

The President indicated that discussions were ongoing with the Russians to turn over about one-third of the more than 100 ships of the Italian Navy surrendered to the Allies the previous September 14. The contingent included five battleships and a carrier, plus 27 destroyers, eight cruisers, and 19 submarines.

Despite unusually high temperatures in northern Russia, more typical of late April and early May, causing thawing of ice and snow, hampering Red Army movement, the Russians continued to make advances toward Pskov and in the area between Lake Peipus and the Finnish Gulf.

More landing forces were being deployed onto Los Negros Island in the Admiralties, fanning out from captured Momote Airfield to engage the relatively few remaining Japanese defenders.

The Japanese were reported to be counter-attacking 46 miles above Akyab in Burma, while West African Allied troops were encountering stiff resistance at Apaukwa, 39 miles north of Akyab. Meanwhile, Allied troops continued mopping-up operations at Ngakyedauk Pass, cleared the previous week of some 5,000 enemy troops out of the 8,000 of the original force.

Clyde A. Farnsworth, reporting in the "Reporter's Notebook" column, tells of Kunming, China, the capital of Yunnan Province, gateway to the Burma Road, now of course closed to Allied traffic. The result had been boom times for Kunming as every consumer good fetched a bloated price, volume being at a premium. He describes weather as temperate, typical of Florida or Southern California.

"Wooden wheeled bullock carts and rubber tired pony carts squeak and jolt into town from the fields, laden with over-sized vegetables. Kunming's sewage, ladled onto these fields, keeps them rich."

The architecture of the city was formed of a mixture of Oriental and Occidental designs.

Rooms cost a hundred American dollars per month to rent; office space cost twice that.

Young girls were warned to stay out of the "international path" and women of "good virtue" were routinely rounded up by the police for soliciting soldiers.

--Soldier boy. You want good virtue?

In Billie's Café, a juke joint popular with the soldiers, records played by Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Harry James, and Jerry Gray.

Whether Rick ever dropped in to compare business operations with Billie after Rick lost his spot in Casablanca in 1941 was not indicated.

Of course, Rick appeared to have joined the Army for awhile for the war in North Africa before joining the Eighth Air Force, rumor having it that he was killed during a mission over France.

Yet, his ghost appeared, clinging fast to the tree, out of a hurricane hitting the Florida Keys after the war.

Among Kunming's primary concerns were raised prices of rice, smallpox outbreaks, and enemy aircraft landing in their midst. A minor concern was the presence of rats, the population required by the government to hand in a quota of dead ones each month.

They were usually suspected of carrying the plague to befoul the nests of the old ladies who watch people in pairs.

Wayne Lonergan, on trial in New York for the brutal murder of his estranged wife in late October, had his first go at justice end in a mistrial when the judge declared that his counsel was attempting to make a farce of the proceedings by first making a motion to dismiss the jury panel for prejudice but then refusing to join the prosecutor on his motion for reconsideration of the same claim. The judge also ordered the attorney to appear a week hence to answer contempt charges for failing to show up in court on two successive days scheduled for start of the trial, as an associate the previous Friday had told the court that the attorney was tending another case in Canada.

As we indicated back in October, Mr. Lonergan's best move appeared to be to give a call to Frank Costello and ask that Mr. Costello pay a social visit--maybe to his own attorney.

For Mr. Lonergan, if you recall, had gone and strangled his best friend, the little dog named Pard.

On the editorial page, "War Mother" recounts that the nation’s Mother of the Year had gone to Washington to urge a diminution of effort on the part of the government to lure mothers into war industries, that mothers should be left at home to raise their children.

The piece recognizes the validity of the argument given the high rate of juvenile delinquency, directly attributable to absent mothers involved in war industry, but also allows that the women in war industry work were necessary to continue high productivity and thus should not be urged away from those positions.

"New Chief" welcomes a new head of the city's Health Department.

"A Lethargy" finds News reporter Tim Pridgen predicting that turnout in the 1944 election would be relatively light and that the candidates, during a year of relative voter apathy, the populace being paradoxically more attuned to the war than politics, would wait until the last minute to begin to engage in active politicking.

The piece predicts that the gubernatorial race between Gregg Cherry and Dr. Ralph McDonald would lack the enthusiasm of the 1936 race when Dr. McDonald was defeated by Clyde Hoey. It also predicts quietude in the Senate race between former Governor Hoey and former Governor and Senator, currently Congressman, Cam Morrison. The race for Congress in the district between Hamilton Jones and Joe Ervin, it believed, would likewise prove a yawner.

The latter race would be won by Joe Ervin, brother to later Senator Sam J. Ervin. Congressman Ervin committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1945, the result of a physical illness, and Sam Ervin was appointed to replace him and complete his term. The younger Ervin did not run again for Congress, having indicated his dislike for the role. He was then appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court where he sat as a justice until his appointment June 11, 1954 to replace Clyde Hoey who had died in May.

It is readily understandable why Senator Ervin, when he spoke, shortly after his appointment, on the "Longines Chronoscope" program, stated to his apparently somewhat nonplussed interviewers, that a large part of the process of being a Senator was waiting to fill dead men's shoes. The black humor was especially poignant given the rather bizarre track record of North Carolina’s Governors and Senators during the previous eight years, as well the ensuing four, between the deaths of Josiah W. Bailey in 1946 and that of W. Kerr Scott in 1958. Ask us sometime to recite the lineage from memory. If we can accomplish it, you owe us something of substantial worth, but you may keep your vertu.

"Paint Job" finds the City Council's determination to spend $400 to repaint the County Industrial Home, reformatory for female misdemeanants, to be a waste of resources on an outmoded facility which ought be closed. The Grand Jury had so recommended and the editorial agrees with that recommendation. Other facilities were already providing the services of the Home.

--Paint job, 'ey?

--No, it's just a spray job.

--It's too damp for a good spray job. How about a paint job?

--You wouldn't be selling your virtue, would you?

--Hadn't thought of it. Have you got a light?

--Paint job, 'ey?

--No, I thought you said just a spray job. While about it, ding how?

--Yeah? One of those, huh? Mama foo foo.

Samuel Grafton finds the mood of the country to be one of silence interspersed with baby talk regarding foreign policy. He contrasts Britain by the speech the previous week of Prime Minister Churchill in which he had recognized the Partisan cause under Tito in Yugoslavia to be worthy of Allied support while Mikhailovich, leader of the Nationalists, had demonstrated his sympathies for the Nazis. The Partisan movement, created by Communists, had so enlarged as to envelop a much broader base of membership.

Yet, America seemed unwilling likewise to recognize the positive leftward movement in Yugoslavia. The bulk of the country was too busy keeping the left in America on the righty-tighty.

Drew Pearson discusses the sloth besetting the State Department in effecting post-war planning for the peace. Ambassador to the Vatican, Myron Taylor, assigned the task of heading a committee to issue a report on avoidance of the mistakes following World War I, was awaiting his task with baited breath, but was still panting.

Russian-born Leo Pasvolsky, confidante of Secretary of State Hull, was in charge of post-war planning at State but had sat on his hands. Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle had not even scheduled a meeting initially to discuss with Great Britain its enunciated willingness to allow American post-war use of island airbases belonging to Britain. When he finally got around to it, he insisted that Russia be left out of the meeting while the British insisted that they be included. The President had finally to intervene and direct that the Russians would be included in the meeting.

Mr. Pearson also comments that with the recent conquests in the Pacific, the Navy was preparing to take back Java, Borneo, and Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies, a move which would restore the large oil reserves lost to the Japanese in early 1942. Restoration of those reserves would considerably ease the burden of fueling Allied planes and ships.

Marquis Childs discusses the secret new explosive which gave the bazooka its powerful wallop in destroying tanks. He dubs it "XYZ". It was actually a rocket motor which, in the anti-tank gun, utilized white phosphorous as a burning agent. A later version, developed toward the end of the war in 1945, employed cyanogen chloride, a poison gas capable of penetrating gas masks.

And a quote from Vice Admiral John McCain, grandfather of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, appears on the page, indicating that only Admiral Yamamoto among the Japanese naval brass ever wanted to fight the Allies in the first instance. And since he was now dead, there was little resolve left to do so.

We promised to say something about the Academy Awards presentation of the previous day, assuming there would be something about it on the front page. There was not, but, looking into our crystal ball, we shall bet that there will be tomorrow, and so we shall await tomorrow upon which to make our statement. In the meantime, we shall try to watch one or two of the eight of the ten nominees which we did not have time to watch during 1943. Having seen two, however, we are doing considerably better than with regard to the nominees for 2010, of which, thus far, we have managed to see precisely none. Actually, that should not be so strange: the movies of 2010, as well those of 1945, have not yet been made. If some of our references and links should dispute it, it is only because we are clairvoyant.