Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Canadian First Army, led by General Henry Crerar, had fought through flood waters of the Rhine to its west bank at Hurendeich opposite Emmerich, withstanding six German counter-attacks, moving slowly to the north end of the Rhine Valley, seeking to outflank the Ruhr. It did not appear that the Canadians were yet attempting to cross the Rhine, more than its normal breadth of two miles resultant of the flooding, at some points as wide as the English Channel at its narrowest point. The Canadians were utilizing amphibious tanks to effect the advance, described by correspondent Howard Cowan as semi-aquatic

The threat to the Ruhr was so imminent from this attack that Field Marshal Walther Von Model was committing every available reserve he could muster into the fight.

The British Second Army moved close to Goch and Calcar in the area of captured Kleve. Kessel, five miles west of Goch, was captured.

German prisoners, moving in lines to the rear, were described by Mr. Cowan as appearing "like a parade of scarecrows", haggard, hungry, beaten, silent, red-eyed, and woebegone.

There was a lull on the remainder of the Western Front, as preparations were ongoing for a major new offensive.

Another American bombing raid, this one consisting of 1,100 heavy bombers and 450 fighters, for the second day in a row struck Dresden, adding to the targets clogged railyards at Cottbus, twelve miles from a sector in which the Russians were advancing. The bombers also struck a synthetic oil plant at Magdeburg. Both Dresden and Cottbus were important highway junctions, necessary of removal as obstacles in the path of the fast advancing Russians toward Berlin, saving lives of all of the Allies in the process, resultant of the stupidity of the Nazis in persisting in a fight against hopeless odds, all to protect a group of lunatics who got control of the country through rightwing propaganda and dissemination of hate and scapegoating against all liberal political interests and against Jews, promulgated during the period of economic depression in Germany in the 1920's—not at all dissimilar, save the overt anti-Semitism, to an effort periodically transacted by conservative interests in the United States since World War II.

These idiots never give up on their attempts to establish militaristically enforced royalty in lieu of a concept they cannot seem to understand, that all human beings have rights equally, not handed down by royal edict, but by dint of birth. They make mock of anyone, they seek to destroy anyone, who is taken seriously in daring to suggest something so obvious.

During the night, 1,300 RAF planes struck Chemnitz, as well as Cottbus and Berlin.

The Fifteenth Air Force hit Vienna.

The new raids brought the total number of planes involved in raids on Germany during the previous 48 hours to 11,000. Tactical aircraft were also active along the Western Front.

Since a concerted campaign to eliminate German oil facilities had begun by the Allies in April against 81 plants, 58 refineries and 23 synthetic oil facilities, 36 had been captured by the Allies moving from both east and west. German oil production had been cut from its height of a half million tons per month to 103,000 tons per month. Of the targeted plants, 52 of the refineries and 22 of the synthetic oil plants had been attacked 450 times by heavy bombers. Of these, 45 remained in enemy hands. Only four of the synthetic oil plants were still in operation, at Bohlen, Ruhland, Magdeburg, and Merseburg, the latter being the locus of the large Leuna plant. All of the refineries, save possibly one, were kaput.

On the Eastern Front, in the drive on Berlin from the southeast, the Russian tank and cavalry forces of Marshal Ivan Konev advanced 17 miles in 24 hours to reach the autobahns at Forst, having crossed the Neisse River 65 miles from the capital and 12 miles east of Cottbus, 40 miles north of Goerlitz, 17 miles west of Sommerfeld, reached by the Russians the prior day. Other forces of Marshal Konev bypassed Kohlfurt and moved ahead 22 miles west of Breslau to reach Goerlitz on the Neisse, 53 miles east of Dresden, with Tass broadcasting from Moscow that the Army had reached a point only 45 miles from the city. The Neisse was the last natural barrier to Dresden.

The Konev forces had made some contact apparently with the forces of Marshal Konstantine Zhukov approaching Berlin from the east on the bridgeheads over the Oder River at Fuerstenburg, 27 miles north of Forst.

On the northern part of the front in Poland, Moscow announced the capture of Chojnice, as well as Tuchola, by Marshal Konstantin Rokossovky's Second White Russian Army. Chojnice was 62 miles southwest of Danzig on the Danzig-Berlin railway, while Tuchola was along the same route 14 miles to the southeast

In Italy, German counter-attacks east of Strettola drove back American outposts about 500 yards and also pushed back forces from Lama Di Sotto on the Tyrrhenian coast, but both positions were then regained. Another German raid in the Serchio Valley forced a slight withdrawal, also with the lost ground regained. There were some sharp patrol clashes between forces of the Fifth Army and the Nazis south of Bologna with some Allied casualties suffered.

In Manila, it was reported that desperately trapped Japanese soldiers were shooting and bayoneting civilians in the area south of the Pasig, in the Intramuros, Ermita, and Malate districts, to which the enemy had been forced by the three American divisions. The heaviest concentration of Japanese was in the Intramuros. The districts were ablaze, similar to the destruction wrought in the Escolta District north of the Pasig the prior week as the Japanese escaped across the river.

Correspondent George Folster reported that Manila had been turned into a "giant funeral pyre" by the retreating Japanese and that during the previous eleven days, countless men, women, and children had been deliberately killed with samurai swords wielded by the enemy or by herding them into wooden buildings and setting them afire. When they tried to escape the flames, they were shot. One Filipino woman suckling her infant child was found dead, the child also dead, both shot. The scene or its equivalent was not unique within the mass of human carnage.

Sixty B-29's again struck the Japanese home islands, hitting Nagoya on Honshu.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson reported that the Japanese were busy moving their industrial base to Manchuria to try to insulate it from Superfortress attack, indicative of the success of the raids thus far. He stated that a raid on Ota the previous week had caused severe damage to an aircraft factory. He also announced that a new Superfortress base was in operation off Tinian to complement the base on Saipan.

It would be from Tinian that the pair of raids in August to deliver the atomic bombs would originate.

Izvestia criticized Senator Burton Wheeler, isolationist from Montana, for his stand in opposition to the Yalta agreement re Poland, asserting his support for the London government-in-exile, which Izvestia labeled pro-Fascist. The article suggested that Senator Wheeler was an advocate for Herr Doktor Goebbels.

Commander Harold Stassen, formerly Governor of Minnesota, and touted as a likely nominee of the Republicans in 1948 for the presidency, had been named by President Roosevelt to the American delegation to attend the United Nations charter conference at San Francisco, designated to commence April 25. Commander Stassen had returned to the United States from his post in the Pacific, on the staff of Admiral William Halsey, to make preparations for his role at the conference.

A Circuit Court in Dixon, Illinois, sentenced a boy of 15, Norman Burton, to 207 years in prison upon his plea of guilty to murdering his five-year old niece with a hammer and knife the previous December 20 at her parents' home. The judge also ordered that on each anniversary of the murder, the defendant be placed in solitary confinement for a day. He would not be eligible for parole under Illinois law in effect at the time until the year 2014.

The boy had reportedly shown no remorse during the hearing on his sentence and walked out of the courtroom chuckling to himself.

He had told psychiatrists, who concluded that he was mentally ill, that he did not care if he died in the electric chair.

Whatever happened to young Norman? We cannot locate him on the internet. He may be due for parole in a couple of years. If he is still among the living, he is 82. Maybe enough is enough for a crime at the age of 15, however callous and dastardly, remorse or no remorse.

In any event, such things do, and still do, occur, as we note in current periodicals. We cannot lock up hammers and knives. But that is neither any argument against strict gun control, or as we favor, absolute prohibition of handguns or military-type assault weapons to anyone not a law enforcement officer or soldier with a lawful purpose for having it in their possession.

Interestingly enough, we find that 15 years to the day before this date in history, on February 15, 1930, had been born Sara Jane Kahn.

Stranger things have happened.

Oh, we should also point out, not to be neglectful, that Dixon was the hometown of President Ronald Reagan.

On the editorial page, "Trouble-Maker" comments on a communique from V. L. Toledano, a labor leader in Mexico City, presently in London, campaigning against the formation of a world labor organization. He found the AFL in America to be disruptive of organized labor. He did not mention CIO.

The editors expressed no real surprise for the fact that Sr. Toledano represented a Soviet-style labor force, controlled by the government. He did not like the fact that AFL, most conservative of American organized labor, did not attend the world trade union council in London on the basis that it was comprised too heavily of Soviet delegates.

Sr. Toledano favored a "new weapon" to aid the world's working classes. The piece suggests he appeared inspired by Lenin and Marx. It was this impetus which apparently had led him to condemn AFL.

"'Broughtoning'" reports that among the leadership of the mental hospital at Morganton it was believed that Governor Gregg Cherry was going to be even more aggressive than immediately past Governor J. Melville Broughton in making improvements to the state hospital system. A bill had been introduced into the Legislature to perform house-cleaning on the hospital boards.

"Burt & the Axis" reports anent Herr Doktor Goebbels's radio address regarding the Yalta Conference, saying that Josef Stalin had won the fight at Yalta, that Roosevelt and Churchill had submitted to Stalin's demands for territory, signal of the Bolzhevik menace to spread over Eastern Europe and especially Poland, the Balkans, and Baltic States.

"Marriage in S.C." remarks on the combining under one ownership umbrella the Columbia Record and The State after the latter had purchased the former, to be emblematic of a growing trend toward consolidating formerly rival publications within the same market. In Greenville, Charleston, and Spartanburg, likewise, the morning and afternoon papers were owned by the same entity. The same was true in North Carolina except in Raleigh and Charlotte.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Sykes of Florida commenting on the statement of Secretary of War Henry Stimson that the Army was not pampering German prisoners of war, finding the statement to be at odds with what Mr. Sykes's constituents reported observing daily, that the Germans were well stocked with good food, candies, cigarettes, with more meat than available to ordinary American civilians under the rationing program. The notion was especially troubling, he contended, when they read of the mistreatment of Americans in Axis prisoner of war camps.

Drew Pearson reports of the attempt of Governor Thomas Dewey and the GOP chairman Herbert Brownell, future Attorney General under President Eisenhower, in meeting with Republican members of Congress, to effect a bill of divorcement in what he had termed the "unholy alliance" between Republicans in Congress and conservative Southern Democrats. House Republican Minority Leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts, however, liked the arrangement for its ability to defeat the Administration on occasion and wished it to continue. Senate Republican leaders disliked the coalition and were happy to agree to break it up.

Marquis Childs comments from London on the debate in Commons ongoing concerning replacement of the House destroyed by German bombs. Prime Minister Churchill and much of the majority Government favored constructing a small facility, the same size and of the same manner as the old. Those in the minority, who constantly struggled during days of active debate to gain a seat in the old House, favored a larger facility.

Hal Boyle, in Germany, reports that the new commander, Major General Clift Andrus, of "Red One", that is the 1st Infantry Division, was a pipe-smoking, chess-playing, coffee-drinking former artilleryman who sought one thing, complete cooperation between his infantry troops and the artillerymen who backed them up. He was the third commander since the Allied North African landings in November, 1942. He had commanded the 24th Division artillery at Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack.

General Andrus was a soldier's commander who respected his troops and treated them with compassion and dignity. In Africa, he once doffed his raincoat to provide it to a private who was stuck in the rain without one.

He rose with the chickens, smoked his pipe and quaffed a dozen cups of coffee per day. When he believed he had smoked his pipe too much, he rolled his own 10-cent pipe tobacco and smoked that.

His philosophy in battle was to hit the Germans hard, get them on the run, and never give them time to rest and retrench. He believed in use of concentrated artillery fire against suitably congregated targets. His division had enjoyed the greatest success of any mobile artillery division. With concerted artillery fire, for instance, his men, in the fall, had broken up, within a matter of minutes, a German counter-attack by night on Aachen.

After a day's field concerns were complete, he read Mark Twain or a current periodical. He also worked crossword puzzles, played solitaire, cribbage, and chess, excelling at cribbage. He liked to play chess with a lieutenant from Harvard who usually beat the general.

A letter to the editor responds to the controversy over Blaze, Col. Elliott Roosevelt's bull mastiff which obtained apparent priority in Memphis over the three soldiers going home on furlough some three weeks earlier. This writer finds the entire controversy without credit, again remarking, as another writer had, that the plane was reserved first for cargo, including animals, and soldiers merely hitched a ride when cargo allowed. Moreover, she asserts that it was traumatic for an animal to be in a small cage in transport and thus required that the animal be allowed to get to where it was going as quickly as possible.

Another bit of verse is offered also regarding the matter, labeled by the editors, "The Last of the Blaze Poems"—which we are sorry to see, as we had begun to grow fond of them, ourselves. This one sides with the Roosevelts and finds the author of "Ode to Blaze", and its follow-up printed the previous day, out to lunch, referring to him as "Hitler's man".

And, really, to label the man "leary" gets way too personal. Besides, it would to appearances be that he only the world in black and white did see, not in colours eery; nor did look he with his ears in imagery of earth fuller to brush that which he perceived in common, but apart from those who saw the majestical mystery of the tannin which verily doth the reflected effect Raman, extended in visual stimuli even to the gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise inlaid scarab of the disturbed tomb of Tutankhamun, wherein trapped, Jackless, coolie went to abridge noise, all to set the record straight in the mare-fab that Blaze in blues or reds or oaken pews must free be from the curves of arrows slung in slang or e'en profanity, to Fala's a priori clay-chair nomen, not of Scone or thrones, but only of the high road within the lowest vale of affinity to Loch Lomond.

Apparently, none of these would-be poets had English teachers who ever engaged them much in the poring over of fine poetry or explained that rhyming couplets insistent throughout a poem become nauseatingly tiring after the first couple of couplets and need variation to hold the reader's interest. Nor does a poem make for having each word on the end of a phrase rhyme, any more so than does a poem bake from standard prose, as much of the poetasters' offerings seek to do these days half, essentially writing songs without musical accompaniment rather than writing poetry, for, apparently, they never read any, or think it somehow passe to make rhyme, as a perfect excuse for not having at their disposal sufficient vocabulary or phrasing skills to any end a purposed goal but to accomplish it.

The Dorman Smith of the day, incidentally, is completely incidental to that which we have previously suggested a couple of days earlier, rather in jest, and should not be interpreted as an editorial remark upon San Francisco, for those too stupid to discriminate between jest and irony, even if certain tiny, miniscule, hardly recognizable elements of that fair city might take note of the coincidence which has transpired completely outside our conscious range of thought. Take note and look hence with thine ears.