Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Second Ukrainian Army, under the command of General Ivan Konev, had reached the Dniester River, forcing a retreat by the Nazis into Bessarabia at Mogilev-Podolski. The action brought the Russians within the old Rumanian frontier and within 50 miles of the Prut River, the 1940 Rumanian border.

The Third Ukrainian Army, under the command of General Rodion Malinovsky, continued to move toward Vinnitsa and Nikolaev, reaching the outskirts of Vinnitsa and to within twenty miles of Nikolaev, the latter now sealed from three sides. The Army was only 75 miles from Odessa, principal remaining Russian port on the Black Sea still in German hands. The remnants of three divisions, once numbering 45,000 men, had been wiped out in the vicinity Beresnegevatoye-Snigirevka, near Nikolaev.

Another force had taken Dubno, 85 miles northeast of Lwow in Poland.

The Allies slowly made their way up the heights Monte Cassino to within a hundred yards of the summit and the ruins of the Abbey, wherein the Nazis continued holing up, raining fire down on newly won Allied positions in Cassino, taken in the wake of the 2,500-ton bombing raid two days earlier.

Some initial German resistance within Cassino had continued from within the bombed-out ruins, but clean-up operations by New Zealand troops had eliminated or driven out all opposition save that couched in one corner of the town, as the Allies again took the railway station, apparently this time for good. Allied engineers, meanwhile, were busy clearing paths for tanks and repairing bridges.

On the Anzio beachhead, the Allies repulsed German attempts to retake two points taken by the Allies two days earlier, near Carano, east of Carroceto.

John A. Moroso, III, reports of the harrowing return of a badly wounded crew of a heavy bomber to their base in England, following the delivery of their load of bombs over Southern Germany.

The raid of the day before by the Eighth Air Force on Friedrichshafen and Ulm had bagged 123 Luftwaffe fighters.

The Fifteenth Air Force this date had attacked Vienna from bases in Southern Italy, hitting a major aircraft factory.

The RAF the previous night, without loss, utilized its new 12,000-ton bombs to strike the Michelin tire factory at Clermont-Ferrand in France, 30 miles southwest of Vichy, as well as the rail yards at Amiens, hit the day before by American bombers. RAF heavy bombers also struck Sofia in Bulgaria, operating in the Mediterranean for the first time in several months.

In the Pacific, the first airborne landing behind enemy lines in Burma took place, in the Hukawng valley.

On Wednesday, the second anniversary of General MacArthur assuming command in the Southwest Pacific, American troops had landed on Manus Island, previously the supply base for Japanese who had been on nearby Los Negros Island in the Admiralties prior to the Allies taking control of the latter island. By nightfall, the Allied troops had reached within a half mile of Lorengau airfield.

The Seventh Air Force struck Truk, for the first time departing from land, probably from Eniwetok in the Marshalls. It was the second raid on Truk, the first having been carried out by carrier-based planes on February 16-17. Oroluk and Ponape were also struck again in the Eastern Carolines.

More bombs fell on Rabaul in New Britain, on Japanese positions around Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville, and on Wewak in northern New Guinea.

In the wake of diplomatic recognition having been provided the Badoglio Government by Russia, Secretary of State Cordell Hull indicated the continued coolness of the United States to recognition of Badoglio. He also indicated that the United States had not been consulted by the Soviets prior to the move, despite such recognition ordinarily being subject to approval by the Allied Advisory Council.

The compromise Federal ballot bill for soldiers which allowed the states to determine the qualifications for voting and the manner in which ballots would be provided absentee voters, still lay on President Roosevelt's desk awaiting signature, as he first sought opinion from the governors of the 48 states on whether they could and would implement procedures for insuring the soldier vote. Several states had already responded affirmatively.

The handyman at the National Cathedral in Washington, arrested for the March 2 brutal beating death of a female employee of the library, Catherine Cooper Reardon, pleaded not guilty to the charge of first degree murder.

Four reporters were injured, albeit none seriously, in a bombing raid which struck their headquarters, dubbed "Villa Virtue", on the Anzio beachhead. Among them was George Tucker of the Associated Press, known before the war as a columnist covering the social and theatrical beat along Broadway in his "Man About Manhattan" syndicated column.

Mr. Tucker provides the entry this date for the "Reporter's Notebook" column, telling of the life of snipers on the Anzio beachhead, a solitary position, routinely rotated among the men, requiring long hours of quiet, patient waiting, unable to smoke, looking for slight enemy movement. As one private put it, "It's sort of informal. If you’re in position to snipe, you snipe."

Also injured in the attack on "Villa Virtue" was Wick Fowler of the Dallas News, who later during the sixties became known for his chili as much as for his reporting. (The chili and taco seasoning which bear his name are today owned by Reily Foods of New Orleans. Lee Oswald worked for the company from May 9 to July 19, 1963 when it was known as Reily Coffee Co. Dealey Plaza is named for the publisher of the Dallas News, George Bannerman Dealey. The newspaper's offices were on Commerce Street on the opposite side of the Plaza from the Book Depository in 1963. Draw your own conclusions, if any. Writers sometimes have odd ways of communicating something which they hold as a truth: that is our conclusion.)

Ernie Pyle had suffered a scratch, but fortuitously avoided death by having switched beds only a few hours earlier, the one he had left behind having been buried beneath rubble. It would be a chance escape which would only provide Mr. Pyle an additional thirteen months of life, as he would be killed April 18, 1945 by enemy machinegun fire on Okinawa, shortly after he was transferred from the European to the Pacific theater of the war.

On the editorial page, "Speedup" speculates that the bombing and taking of Cassino by the Allies could hasten the drive to Rome and the consequent fall of the Badoglio Government. For, once Rome would be taken, there would inevitably be shake-up in the government of Italy as the provisional nature of the Badoglio regime would have reached the limit of its utility to preserve order during the time of Allied occupation.

The more freedom of speech had been restored in occupied areas of Italy, points out the editorial, the more the outcry had been to oust Badoglio and King Vittorio Emanuele.

"The Library" deplores the woeful state of the local Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, in possession of only 74,000 books for a county with a population of 134,000, less than half therefore the number it ought have and little more than a third of optimum size to meet future demands from a prospectively growing post-war population. There had been improvement, with per capita expenditure on the library increased from 29 cents in 1942 to 42 cents, but it was still not enough to bridge the gap between an outmoded library and a modern facility for readers. To meet proper needs, the per capita expenditure should be a dollar, enough to purchase 150,000 books and to build a new physical structure to house them.

It was quite an improvement, however, over the condition of the library experienced in 1939 when, following the state Supreme Court's decision that library facilities were subject to local determination of funding, it had to close after voter apathy failed to pass a half-cent per capita tax to fund the budget for the ensuing year. After remaining closed for the 1939-40 fiscal year, it was reopened.

Today, and for the past two decades since its 1989 main branch expansion, as we have previously indicated, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has become one of the nation’s best for the size of the population served. Although we have not darkened its doors for the past six years, the bulk of materials for the Charlotte News section of this project during its first seven years were obtained from the facility.

"Tom Dewey" finds it noteworthy that the Young Republicans of North Carolina had indicated their favor of Thomas Dewey over Wendell Willkie, despite polls in the South favoring Mr. Willkie. The preference appeared to result from reaction to Mr. Willkie's favoring continuance of FDR’s foreign policy. Adding to the Willkie antagonism was his recent statement that he could not foresee supporting any other Republican candidate in November. He was now viewed as a turncoat, as a Roosevelt Democrat who happened to have carried the banner of the Republican Party in 1940. And, of course, in fact, Mr. Willkie had been a Democrat until shortly before his nomination.

While North Carolina's Young Republicans, the piece admits, were no bellwether for the trend, if it were to continue nationwide, as some national observers predicted it would, and Governor Dewey continued to increase his popularity, then inevitably the stand of the young North Carolinians could bespeak a trend.

Indeed, it would be so.

"Red Cross" finds problematic the fact that, no sooner than The News had printed an editorial bemoaning the slow drive for funding of the Red Cross, suddenly appeared $75,000 added to the fund literally overnight, bringing the drive from $70,000 behind its goal to $5,000 beyond it. It appeared the problem was inaccurate reporting of the amounts collected thus far in the campaign. The piece urges better accuracy in the future so that Mecklenburgers would not sense the cry of "Wolf!" and then not respond to urging of the public to meet funding drive deadlines.

Samuel Grafton looks at several competing reasons why Russia had decided at the time to recognize the Badoglio Government in Italy, seemingly ill-timed, as the taking of Rome by the Allies would inevitably create a shake-up in Italy out of which the Badoglio Government would likely fall. But, he asks whether the move was strategically timed for that very reason, realizing the recognition would be short-lived, in the meantime gaining favor with governments of the Balkan nations, encouraging of anti-Nazi and pro-Russian sympathies, as well as other new governments to come throughout Europe. It might have been also, he further speculates, that Russia was cooperating with U.S. policy, friendly toward Badoglio, if not formally recognizing his government. Moreover, Russia had never opposed the Badoglio regime, had favored being more inclusive of democratic elements within that government, as was stated as a goal in the Moscow Declarations after the foreign ministers’ conference in Moscow the previous October.

Marquis Childs discusses the manpower problem in certain key industries, synthetic rubber, gasoline, and radar, wherein the loss of a few key young men, highly trained in their arts, could create havoc in those industries. Thus, the threat of drafting these key men, as the need for more young men in the Army had dramatically increased in recent months, had been brought to the attention of the President by Donald Nelson, chair of the War Production Board, and Paul McNutt, Manpower Commissioner.

Mr. Childs finds the dilemma the result of want of proper planning. He recalled the advice early on in the war from Bernard Baruch that standardization and simplification of all primary consumer goods, shoes, clothing, and food, should be assured to eliminate waste in manpower.

Drew Pearson examines the background of the determination to provide Russia with the equivalent of one-third of the Italian Fleet, that it originated with the consternation of Premier Stalin at the time of the Italian armistice in September, that he had become furious at the Western Allies for not consulting him on its terms. Thus, to placate Russia, the move was underway to provide at least for the duration of the war the equivalent of one-third of the Italian Fleet, co-sharing with Britain and the United States in the spoils of war, even if carefully delineated as something other than that. It fit well Russia’s long held desire to become a naval power, and by surpassing Italy in that regard.

He next turns to the repeated pattern of official government denial of certain positions, followed eventually by admissions. He starts with the attack the previous summer by both Secretary of State Hull and the President on his own column for stating that the Secretary had been historically cool to the Soviets. But, it had turned out that the State Department had turned a cold shoulder to the Soviets at the time of the Italian armistice.

He recalled a similar about-face during the Hoover Administration when Henry Stimson was then Secretary of State and Mr. Pearson had reported that in the crisis over Japan's occupation of Manchukuo in China, Mexico and Chile had offered naval support. The State Department denied the report, but Mr. Stimson subsequently informed Mr. Pearson that, though true, he had to deny the story to save face with Mexico and Chile who might otherwise feel compromised in their confidential relations with the U.S. Government.

The column then proceeds to list several such official denials of stories followed by admissions of their truth.

A disgruntled taxpayer writes in opposition to an editorial which had appeared on March 13, indicating that despite the highest tax rate in the nation among the states, North Carolina supplied more services than other Southern states and had a smaller tax base from which to work than states in other areas of the country. The letter writer objects to the notion, saying that the article on which the editorial had been premised, by Gareth Muchmore, was unnecessary: all North Carolina taxpayers understood all too well their high burden. And he objects further to that which he sees as excuses made for it by a too friendly editorial.

There being no mention of St. Patrick's Day on the pages, we offer you a second wish of a Happy St. Patrick's Day. You get two this year. And, since our team won today, all the better. The Spartans, however, went home early. But, the Spartans still live. Viva Los Spartans.