Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Third Ukrainian Army was continuing to advance along three routes toward encirclement of Odessa, from captured Karpova, 23 miles to the northwest, from captured Maryanovka, 21 miles to the north, and from captured Sverdlova, 14 miles to the northeast of the Black Sea port. Meanwhile, the Nazis were staging a fierce counter-offensive on the lakes and lagoons of Odessa to try to stave off the advancing Russians.

Three hundred miles northwest of Odessa, the First Ukrainian Army was fighting in the streets of Tarnopol, having seized half the town, against fierce counter-attacks by the Nazis from the southwest. Other forces of the Army were continuing to encircle the fifteen divisions trapped in the Skala sector, northeast of captured Czernowitz. The Russians in the meantime had occupied the town of Skala.

Communiques omitted mention for the second straight day of the progress of the Second Ukrainian Army, last reported crossing the Prut River at Iasi.

In India, the Japanese were reported to have reached to within 40 miles of the Bengal-Assam railway, vital lifeline to General Joseph Stilwell's Northern Burma operations. It was confirmed that the Japanese had occupied a fifteen-mile stretch of the 60-mile Imphal to Kohima highway, cutting off Imphal from the north, as reported the previous day.

In Italy, ground action continued in a lull.

RAF Mosquitos attacked Hamburg and areas of the Ruhr and Rhineland the previous night, suffering only one lost plane.

The previous day's American raid on Pas-de-Calais was carried off without loss, with returning crews reporting only light anti-aircraft fire and no German fighters in the air.

A small combined British and American raid of the Fifteenth Air Force struck Zagreb, capital of Croatia in Yugoslavia, where it was faced by stiff opposition of the Luftwaffe. British Spitfires attacked Banja Luka, 80 miles northeast of Sarajevo.

Allied sources confirmed that the recent raids of the Fifteenth Air Force on Budapest and Bucharest were carried out in direct consultation and coordination with the Russians, to dovetail operations and avoid the potential for conflicting sorties which could wind up in friendly-fire disaster.

A large 250-plane raid, dropping 320 tons of bombs, on Wednesday again struck Hollandia air base on northern Dutch New Guinea, following the Sunday 400-ton raid on the same base. There were no losses as no Japanese interceptors gave chase.

Captain Don Gentile of Ohio, a Mustang pilot in the Eighth Air Force out of England, was reported to have become the first pilot of the war to break Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's 26-plane kill record of World War I. Captain Gentile, also breaking the record of the present war set by Captain Joe Foss and missing Captain Gregory Boyington, had bagged his 27^th plane.

Lt. General Omar Bradley, commander of the American infantry forces set to invade the Continent, while briefing officers on the coming invasion, described as "tommyrot" the estimate he had heard that some 90 percent of the men under their command would not return alive. He assured that the support of tank, plane, and artillery fire would be so fierce as to minimize infantry losses. He cited the de minimis losses, about 3 or 4 per thousand, in the Tunisian Campaign a year earlier as Exhibit A to corroborate his optimism.

"They say Barnum & Bailey had the greatest show on earth, but that will be only a sideshow compared to the one you will be in," explained the "soldier's General". He implored them to set an example to their men, not to cower in fear, but to stand up and fight to the last of the ammunition, that the men under their command would then be encouraged to follow suit.

General Lewis B. Hershey, Director of Selective Service, indicated that, until July, 200,000 men per month would be required to fulfill draft requirements, and 150,000 men per month thereafter, even extending beyond the end of the war, to preserve the peace once won. He indicated that demobilization would have to proceed slowly for the peace long to endure.

Great Britain reported that 1944 was shaping up to be the worst strike year since 1926, when there had been a general walkout, more workers having walked off the job during March, 170,000 in all, than in all of 1941. Fully a million work days had been lost in 1943 because of strikes, the second worst year in British history. More than half of the strikes were in the coal industry. Most were unauthorized and opposed by union leadership.

Though not so reported, it would appear that John L. Lewis's malefaction had spread far across the sea.

Russell Landstrom, in the "Reporter's Notebook" column, writes from England of Lt. Colonel John Corley of Brooklyn, a veteran officer of the North Africa and Sicily operations, who was convinced that the American fighting man was the best in the world.

A recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for attacking, along with his bodyguard, a substantial number of Germans manning a machinegun nest at El Guettar, the colonel explained to Mr. Landstrom how, the previous year, he had conned the Kaid of Sidi-Bou-Sid in Tunisia out of a bottle of cognac in exchange for some inferior tobacco.

On the editorial page, "Ersatz" comments on North Carolina Senator Josiah W. Bailey's endorsement during the week of Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia for the Democratic nomination for president and, for vice-president, former FDR mentor and now Administration gadfly, Jim Farley.

The editorial offers that Senator Bailey likely did not seriously think that FDR would not seek a fourth term; the piece opines that no other result during the war would be salutary to the country.

And, regardless, a Byrd-Farley ticket would lose substantially in all likelihood to a Dewey ticket. It suggests to Senator Bailey that he look, therefore, to greener pastures.

"Indictment" observes that the resignation by a Soviet agent for alleged secret double-dealing by Moscow with respect to international relations should be treated with deference by the Western Allies and at least investigated for its truth or falsity, prior to the day of reckoning at the peace table after the war was won. It would be wise to know to what extent Russia would be a true ally and to what extent the superficial cooperation during war was just that and no more.

"Pedestrians" takes up a topic long dormant since the departure of habitual walker to work, carless, W. J. Cash, and proceeds to warn--zoom-zammy-zoom-zoom-zapperoo--unaccustomed pedestrians on Charlotte's streets of the ways parlous in untrammeled travel accorded by the heedless driving habits of the ordinary motorist plying headstrong their weltering way along, unwilling to yield any ground to the hapless pedestrian caught in the middle of the road as the light might change--in favor of the derby-dressed, Fireball entranced, caper pontificate, flick-a-rod flamed, crusading, credulous, bolter-framed, Tam-Shantered, presbyteral equestrian.

At that point, the pedestrian was in no man's land and had best behave accordingly, to avoid it at all costs, should he have any respect, that is, for his life and limb.

Strangers to the burg, thus beware, warns the editorial.

"Gerald Smith" remarks on the prominent America Firster and Bundist, publisher of the anti-Semitic and anti-British The Cross and the Flag, having bragged, with a good bit of reason, that he had enabled the defeat of Wendell Willkie in Wisconsin's primary, thereby pushing him from the race.

Such extreme right-wing opposition within the Republican Party, swaying the Midwest to its winds, would inevitably portend a convention platform, predicts the piece, embracing devolution of the New Deal and a return to isolationist policies internationally.

The editorial equates the Smith position, a virulent position nurtured and spread by the Chicago Tribune, with Nazism and thus dangerous to the continued vitality of democracy.

"Twin Beds" finds the inveighing of bold Judge Frank Donahue of Chicago to be foolhardy and purposeless. The judge was for a law to make it mandatory that married couples sleep in the same bed, not the twin set. The estimable jurist was convinced that twin beds had given rise to failed marriages and childless wedlock.

Nevertheless, asserts the piece confidently, married couples would continue to insist on mutual comfort over assured marital bliss, by sleeping separately--as, the piece reminds, it was in the movies.

Well, within twenty years, not all the movies.

Samuel Grafton comments on plans to have Cordell Hull, Senator Tom Connally of Texas, and Representative Luther Johnson, also of Texas, to act as surrogates for the White House to deliver foreign policy speeches, intended presumably to silence criticism among the columnists for the extant vacuum in foreign policy.

To what end? inquires rhetorically Mr. Grafton.

It would be well instead to convince the peasants of Italy of U.S. sincerity in formulating foreign policy for occupied countries in Europe than breathlessly to issue rejoinder to the columnists and pundits at home.

Whereas Russia was busy winning friends across war-torn Europe where formerly it had none, on the simple expedient of being willing to recognize revolutionary guerilla movements in Eastern Europe, the U.S. and Great Britain were busy in Western Europe alienating whole populations, who once respected them, by the fact of their depressing revolutionary underground movements and lending support instead to former fascists, such as Badoglio in Italy.

"Turn all the mirrors to the wall; bend the thermometers, parboil the pundits, make them say they're sorry. And then what?"

Marquis Childs comments from New York on the probability that Thomas Dewey, though not actively seeking the Republican nomination, for his campaign promise in 1942 to complete his term as Governor of New York, would become the Republican nominee at the convention starting in Chicago on June 28. Mr. Dewey would likely campaign as a middle-of-the-road candidate, between the excessive bureaucracy of the New Deal and the social reforms which it had initiated.

Punctilious in his attention to detail, his most striking characteristic being hands-on management, he had recently spent an entire evening poring over the text of a bill passed by the Legislature to pay an upstate grocer $451 for groceries sold the State, for which the grocer claimed he had never been compensated. The Governor determined finally to veto the bill.

Mr. Childs observes that he could be an effective campaigner, that his appearances in the Midwest during the 1940 campaign had made a lasting impression on people who saw them.

Though not seeking to become the groom on the wedding cake, he was ready to accept the invitation to the wedding.

Drew Pearson first reports of Lauchlin Currie, deputy chief of the Foreign Economic Administration, headed by Leo Crowley, having urged the President to sanction neutral Sweden for its having authorized engineers from the Swedish ball bearing company, SKF, to go to Schweinfurt in Germany to rebuild the ball bearing plant which the Eighth Air Force had destroyed during the fall at a cost of 60 bombers and 600 men--actually, subsequently determined to have been 69 bombers, and thus, presumably, 690 men.

No pre-existing contractual arrangement between SKF and the German company in Schweinfurt having been, no legal reason compelled SKF to oblige its service.

Most disturbing to observers was the fact that the American affiliate of SKF was headed by William Batt, a member of the War Production Board--and sometime poser with Frank Porter Graham and Eleanor Roosevelt, the only thing missing then being the long black cape.

There was opposition to Mr. Currie's position within FEA, namely that of Winfield Riefler, and so the final decision on what to do, if anything, lay with the President.

Mr. Pearson next turns to the recent Gallup poll which had determined that as few as 37 million Americans were likely to vote in the 1944 election, down from 50 million in 1940, the result of shifts in population to war industry centers where many workers had not registered to exercise their right of franchise, as well as the void within the potential electorate resultant of the ten million men and women in uniform.

Demographic analysts, friendly to the President, had determined that he could not win if as few as 40 million voted, that he might win if 45 million voted, that he would be assured of victory at 50 million, and would also continue Democratic hold on both houses of Congress at 55 million.

The actual total number of voters in November, 1944 would be 47.5 million, of whom the President would carry 25.5 million. It would prove enough not only for FDR to be re-elected handily but sufficient also to enable the Democrats to gain 20 seats in the House and maintain a strong Democratic majority in the Senate at 57 to 38, with a loss of but a single seat in the latter chamber.

Thus, the President's demographers and the Gallup poll were inaccurate in their spring assessment.

Mr. Pearson then notices returning veteran, Congressman Henry "Scoop" Jackson, later prominent conservative Senator of Washington state, and, in 1972 and 1976, presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, who had found that soldiers on the front griped most about having a too short furlough available for home leave prior to being shipped overseas. Henceforth, as a result of Congressman Jackson's report, soldiers would receive ten-day furloughs, plus transportation time to and from the base.

He then tells of War Production Board member Bob Nathan, who had argued with General Somervell regarding the latter's insistence on production of large numbers of tanks, artillery, trucks, and ground weapons, at the expense of both planes and high octane fuel to run them. Despite Mr. Nathan having been proved correct, the Army had drafted him to push him out of the way, only to have him spend all of his time in an Army hospital for a longstanding spinal problem--his spine having been too strong, obviously, for the liking of General Somervell.

Finally, Mr. Pearson looks at the Kellemses, ambitious brother and sister, both of whom were Republican carpers against the Administration. Vivien Kellems had lost the Republican nomination for the Congress in 1942 to Clare Boothe Luce in Connecticut. Now, brother, Dr. Randolph Kellems, was running for the Congressional seat to be vacated by Will Rogers, Jr. in Los Angeles, as the latter had enlisted in the Army. It appeared that the brother also, however, was not going to be the party nominee over favored former Lt. Governor Ellis Patterson.

A news piece informs of the return to Allied hands of Rashid Ali al-Gailani, former Premier of Iraq, who, along with 19 other prisoners, was returned to Baghdad. He had led a fight in Iraq against the British briefly in May, 1941. At last report, he had been sighted in Italy, where, presumably, the Allies captured him, after he had been sentenced to death in absentia by an Iraqi court. He would not, however, be executed, but instead would live until 1965, escaping at the end of the war to Saudi Arabia where he remained in exile until 1958.