Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Japanese defenders of the Yaeju-Dake escarpment, a coral formation stretching three miles across Okinawa, the last stand defense line on the southern tip of the island, were firing with 105-mm. guns at the Tenth Army in a desperate attempt to stop the American advance. The defenders were losing a thousand troops per day in the final battle as they holed up in some sixty identified caves. Banzai charges were expected when the enemy was finally cornered, nearly an accomplished fact, as the enemy forces were compressed into 15 square miles.

The enemy shelled the Naha harbor bridge within Oroku Peninsula. The 7th Regiment of the First Marines encountered heavy fire attempting to complete the taking of Itoman, not yet accomplished. The 96th Infantry Division was also under fire from enemy cave positions, as the 17th Battalion of the 7th Division used flamethrowing tanks against the Japanese positions.

The Americans had counted 67,703 enemy troops dead through Friday's fighting on Okinawa since April 1.

The worst four days of bombing attacks yet inflicted on Japan had taken place Thursday through Sunday, with relatively light attacks on Tachikawa and Aisuki airfields in the Tokyo-Tokohama area following on Monday. The Sunday raid was accomplished by 250 to 300 B-29's on Tokyo and Yokohama against light opposition. Only one B-29 was lost Sunday and three in the entire four days, with seven other fighter planes lost, the pilots of at least four of which were rescued.

The Japanese Diet voted to provide to Premier Suzuki virtual authority to rule Japan by decree. Some members objected that it had the effect of dissolving the Diet.

Australian troops on Friday invaded northwest Borneo in a three-point amphibious landing operation, seizing control of Brunei Bay and advancing 4,000 yards inland from Brooketon, encountering light resistance. General MacArthur reportedly participated personally in the invasion after visiting the point of the Labuan invasion the previous week. Labuan town and airfield had been quickly captured. Another landing was effected at Maura Island on the southern part of Brunei Bay. These landings supplemented the landing on Tarakan Island off Borneo on May 1, where fighting still continued.

The primary goal was to obtain the oil from Borneo, especially prized for its purity, needing little refining. All Allied fuel at present still had to be brought across the Pacific.

On Luzon, the 37th Infantry Division bagged Bagabag without a fight and advanced five miles beyond, toward the Cagayan Valley in the north, twelve miles distant. The next major objective was Santiago, 30 miles north, at a point where the valley broadened. The 38th Division continued to clear out enemy positions in the hills east of Manila. The Japanese were reported to have suffered 5,311 dead in the prior week, bringing enemy casualties for the campaign to 392,116. Americans suffered 172 dead during the week.

Fighting continued on Mindanao against stiff enemy opposition in the area of Davao.

In Failersberg, Germany, hospital records were discovered showing that the Nazis had systematically put to death 350 infants of Russian and Polish slave laborers. The babies had been removed from their mothers and then left to starve. The corpses were then given to a farmer who received 25 cents per burial.

President Truman asked Congress to appropriate about 22 billion dollars in new money to finance the war against Japan for the coming fiscal year. The total 39 billion sought, including prior balances, was a reduction from the 45 billion estimated at the beginning of the year, based at the time on continuing the European war, and was a 25 percent reduction from the appropriation for the previous fiscal year. The estimated expense included the prospect of reduction of the Army by 1.2 million men during the coming year, 2.2 million to be discharged and a million to be conscripted.

Former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels testified before the House Postwar Military Policy Committee, stating that he disfavored a peacetime draft, that it was only necessary to maintain a strong air capability to insure the peace and adequate protection against war. Mr. Daniels believed that a draft would never enable the country to dominate in war.

The Southern Democrats and Republicans who opposed the poll tax were able to wrest the repeal legislation from the Rules and Judiciary Committees and bring the matter to an immediate floor vote the following day, considered a victory for the opponents. The committees had pigeonholed the legislation to avoid a vote.

In San Francisco, the Big Five were now in agreement on all major points in the proposed charter for the United Nations, the agreements having been reached the previous week on the Security Council veto, eliminating mere discussion as being subject to veto, as well as resolving the trusteeships issues. The smaller nations, however, were still not completely in accord. Australia wanted to preserve the right of the eleven-member Security Council at large to undertake peaceful measures to resolve issues even over Big Five objections. There was no issue as to the right of veto of the Big Five on use of force. The Big Five opposed the Australian view.

Harry Hopkins, having completed his mission to Moscow, was now in Paris. He had reported good success with the Russians in resolving the disputes over organization of the government of Poland and with respect to the arrest of the 16 Polish leaders occurring in late March.

And, look here. If you have been saying to yourself that you must have a new car soon or bust, well, look no further. The brand new beautiful Nash for 1946 will be in your neighborhood showroom soon. Yes, that's right, pardner. No more waiting. You've been without this beauty for three and a half years and that is just about long enough. So, without further ado, let us pull back the curtain and take a look-see around the corner at this lovely creature and soon-to-be new edition to your family.

Go on, take a spin. We know you're dying to get in there. It comes in three or four colors, too.

On the editorial page, "A New Head Man" reports on the selection of Dr. David Young to become the new superintendent of the four State hospitals. Dr. Young, a native of the state, had been teaching psychiatry in Utah. He appeared to be a sound administrator and a good selection.

"Careful, Men!" suggests that, though Congress was due for a salary increase beyond its current $10,000 per year, which included most expenses, it was not provident to propose a doubling of that salary during the continuation of the war, with the Little Steel formula in place limiting wage increases throughout the war. It would be better to wait until the war was over before any such substantial increase should be considered.

"Labor at School" remarks that the Textile Workers Union of America training institute was getting ready to hold its annual session at the University of North Carolina, canceled the previous summer because of the polio epidemic. The purpose of the institute was to develop labor leadership, not, as Dave Clark of the Textile Bulletin claimed, to develop Communists.

"Can't Stop Now" indicates that the buying of war bonds had considerably slowed among ordinary citizens since V-E Day a month earlier, the country buying only 56 percent of the established quota. Mecklenburg and its neighboring counties had purchased only 41.8 percent of the quota. Corporate and financial institutional buying continued apace. A month remained in the campaign.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Robert Wagner of New York inquiring of Senator Robert Taft of Ohio how OPA, under Senator Taft's proposed amendment, could possibly operate to establish whether there was a profit on every single item under price control.

Drew Pearson discusses the new First Daughter, Margaret Truman, who had just finished her junior year at George Washington University and was being sent back to Independence to keep her away from the distraction of Washington's social glitter, of which she had been the considerable object during the previous month and a half. Her picture appeared at various social functions, much to the consternation of the President, who believed, with the war ongoing, it was not an appropriate image for the First Family.

Ms. Truman, incidentally, lived until 2008 and in her latter three decades wrote several murder mysteries set in and about Washington, including, in 1998, Murder at the Watergate. Prior to that, she had written several non-fiction works centering on her father's presidency.

She had also once become the storm center of controversy when, to a less than generous Washington Post music critic of Ms. Truman's singing debut at Washington's Constitution Hall in 1950, the President indited a well-known less than generous reply, indeed, in the classic mold of the code duello.

Well, as we were once selected, in 1963—or was it '64? tempus fugit—to play, in our thespian debut, the esteemed role of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, a role which we played according to the Stanislavski method, with considerable aplomb and plausible denial, and, as we discover today, Ms. Truman sang and recorded his song, "Beneath a Weeping Willow's Shade", we offer it for your edification. That Ms. Truman and ourselves wound up instead practicing the art of writing are the losses only to the world of music and theater, respectively.

Mr. Pearson next shifts to the secret talks between Harry Hopkins and Premier Stalin in Moscow, just concluded. It had leaked that Mr. Hopkins had been informed by Comrade Stalin that the sixteen Polish leaders imprisoned were not all charged with plotting against the Red Army, as previously reported from the San Francisco Conference. Rather some were charged only with making illicit communication via secret radio with London. But the Germans had been monitoring the communications and so the Poles stood accused of aiding them in establishing positions of the Red Army. He assured that only those believed guilty would stand trial and the others would soon be released.

Mr. Pearson then discusses the late General "Pa" Watson, one of President Roosevelt's closest advisers, and his fealty to former West Point classmates, such as Virgil Peterson, who had, at General Watson's recommendation, become Inspector-General of the Army. But, now, not having been very effective, General Peterson was out.

The column then notes that General Watson and Senator Carter Glass of Virginia had been largely responsible for Virginia Military Institute graduate Col. George C. Marshall becoming Army chief of staff, ahead of his West Point competition.

A piece culled from the Magazine Digest explains the role of the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill, founded by law professor Albert Coates. Professor Coates had decided at one point in his teaching duties of criminal law that his students were not receiving the everyday practicalities of the criminal law and so temporarily left teaching to become a police officer, then sheriff, then highway patrolman, returned with a new appreciation of law enforcement.

But he also found that there was plentiful ignorance within the counties as to what was required to be done to satisfy legal requirements. There was less corruption than just plain ignorance, he concluded. And so, he founded the Institute to train any local government or state government official, including members of the State Legislature, who sought out that training.

Many other states were copying the Institute and establishing their own government training centers.

Marquis Childs discusses the determination, as announced by American chief prosecutor of war crimes, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, to have full trials of accused Nazi war criminals rather than adopting the position favored by the British, to take the accused outside and summarily shoot them.