Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Second White Russian Army had driven along the Warsaw-Konigsberg highway to within seventeen miles of East Prussia's southern border at Przasnysz, and it was believed that the southern part of the offensive push by the Russians had already crossed into German Silesia. Modlin, at the confluence of the Vistula and Bug Rivers, had been captured, together with a thousand towns northwest of Warsaw. The Russians were said to have two million troops now within Poland, pushing fast north and west from the liberated capital.

German troops were disengaging from Slovakia to the Polish plains, pulling back toward the Oder, which, at its closest point, was but thirty miles from Berlin. Tomaszow was reported evacuated, 30 miles southeast of Lodz, as forces of Marshal Gregory Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev converged from the east and south on the great industrial city of Poland.

Berlin was now 260 miles from captured Czestochowa on the Eastern Front, 301 miles from Duren on the Western Front.

Military analyst Max Werner writes of the broken Warsaw-Krakow German line, meant as an outer defense bulwark to Germany. Without it, the Wehrmacht could scarcely hope any longer to maintain control of Western Poland or the approaches to Eastern Germany.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson gave praise to the new Russian offensive, indicating its full coordination with the newly launched drive of the British Second Army and the American First and Third Armies to eliminate completely the Belgium Bulge.

The Secretary also provided December casualty statistics for the Western Front. Fully 74,788 Americans had been killed, wounded, or were missing, the bloodiest month of the war. The numbers did not reflect air losses. The casualties included the Aachen offensive of the First and Ninth Armies along the Roer River, the Third Army's plunge into the Saar Basin, and the Seventh Army's penetration into Bavaria, added to the 52,594 casualties suffered just during the period of the Battle of the Bulge, through January 7.

Casualties for the Seventh Army, between its landing in Southern France August 15 and January 1, totaled 40,683, of whom 6,742 had been killed, 30,308 wounded, and 3,633 missing. The French First Army in the South of France had sustained 31,544 casualties, of whom 5,067 had been killed, 24,287 wounded, and 1,590 missing.

Prime Minister Churchill gave praise to the American fighting forces, indicating that the Americans had lost 60 to 80 men for every British soldier lost thus far on the Western Front since the beginning of the Ardennes offensive December 16.

A month before the Battle of the Bulge, he reminded, the British had lost 40,000 men in opening the Scheldt in Holland and western Belgium.

The relative proportions of losses versus men committed by each nation were virtually equal, assured the Prime Minister. American forces landed on the front outnumbered British two to one.

The British Second Army advanced almost three miles into Germany near Hongen, moving from the Meuse toward the Roer River, widening the front to 28 miles northeast of Sittard. Fog continued to impair visibility and reduce air cover. Total British gains in three days had been four miles, eight miles from the Roer River.

The American First Army had gained some yardage toward St. Vith, moving to within less than four miles of the key remaining communications center in Belgium still in German hands.

The Third Army had initiated a new attack on the lower edge of the German salient in Belgium.

One hundred B-17's and a hundred fighter escorts made a small tactical raid on a railyard at Kaiserlautern. RAF planes attacked Magdeburg at dawn.

Ten U.S. bombers and five fighters had been lost the day before in attacks by 700 heavy bombers and 350 fighters on U-boat pens at Hamburg and railyards at Paderborn.

The Sixth Army on Luzon had moved to within a short distance from Tarlac, still encountering little resistance from the enemy. Only mosquitoes proved thus far bothersome. The right flank moved up the Bolinao Peninsula to capture the town of Bolinao. On the left flank, the Army cut the primary Luzon-Baguio highway in two places.

Tokyo reported that B-29's had flown over Kobe and Osaka, while one Superfortress flew over Tokyo, dropping no bombs, engaging only in reconnaissance.

Twenty-eight B-29's raided Hong Kong and Canton again on Wednesday.

The House Military Affairs Committee had scheduled new hearings on the proposed National Service Act as to its impact on farm workers, after agricultural leaders had complained that the proposed bill to end many of the farm deferments would cause farm workers to leave the farm and seek war-essential work in the cities.

Death sentences had been imposed in Paris on five American soldiers for selling stolen government gasoline on the Parisian black market and for desertion. Two others received life sentences and an eighth got ten years in prison. Two of the men had made $16,000 in six weeks, selling gas in five-gallon cans for $10 to $20 a throw.

On the editorial page, "Hard But Unfair" favors a bill introduced within the State Legislature to allow deduction from State taxes of the paid Federal taxes. The Federal Government allowed deduction for state taxes; the converse was only fair, concludes the piece. Presently, no deductions were allowed for other tax payments except those paid locally for property taxes.

"A Fresh Start" finds the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, with a new conductor and board of directors, to be on a new course. Control of the orchestra by two men had been too tightly maintained in the past, it opines, with too much emphasis on "long-hair" programs—that is classical music, not Beatles. Those problems, together with inadequate financing, poor public relations, and amateurish performances, had beset the orchestra under its old baton.

"Toll of Retreat" finds the reported losses in the Battle of the Bulge to have been far less than at first imagined, and, given the magnitude of the offensive by the Germans and their own losses of at least 90,000 men, with 50,000 taken prisoner, American losses, while the highest yet of the war in any single engagement, were still not so high as they might have been.

"New Helmsman" comments on the successor as chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee of Martin Dies. New Jersey Congressman Edward J. Hart, it instructs, was not well qualified for the position, but he had voted against the committee being made permanent. He had, however, voted to continue the existence of the committee from session to session as a temporary investigatory device.

King Henry VIII has a letter printed at the bottom of the column, professing in 1532 his love to his eventual second wife, Anne Boleyn.

Drew Pearson writes of the closest person presently to the President being his daughter Anna Boettiger, having spent the previous two years living in the White House and having become in that time the President's closest confidante. She regularly consulted on policy and filtered appointments.

James R. Young, expert on the Far East, imparts that the war in China was being lost, that the Allies were no longer on the main road to Tokyo from China. Key losses included Changsha, Hengyang, Lingling, Wenchow, and evacuation of Kweilin. In addition, Merrill's Marauders in Northern Burma had collapsed from illness, fatigue, and various disorders. The death of Major General Orde Wingate, the "Lawrence of Arabia" of Burma, had removed the primary British strategist from the Burma-India theater and set operations back two years.

The problems had arisen, not in the Chinese soldiers themselves, trained by Americans and equipped with American guns, but rather in consequence of insufficient supplies, broken communications and signal corps systems, lack of trained Chinese military leaders, poor intelligence of enemy movements, exhaustion of war materials, improper clothing, lack of food and medical supplies, and general mistreatment of the Chinese soldiers.

Without three million well-trained soldiers, the Japanese could continue to gain ground in China, perhaps taking over Kunming, the tin capital of Yunnan Province. From Kunming, the Japanese could coordinate attacks on Chungking from Hankow.

Marquis Childs reminds readers of largely forgotten Norway, occupied by the Nazis since spring 1940. Norwegians, many starving, had hoped for liberation in the spring of 1944, that the Nazis could not hold out another winter. During the previous six months, Nazi cruelty in the country had become ever greater and unrestrained, reflecting the bitterness of defeat.

Dorothy Thompson reports of a study done of German attitude, conducted by three scholars of German culture and history, sent into the Aachen area to interview Germans and assess their mindsets. The group concluded that most Germans treated the Nazis as a foreign influence, not German, that they preferred to be ruled after the war, not to have self-government for which they believed they were not ready. Most did not profess any belief in racial superiority; women were inclined to view marriage to Russians, British, or Americans as acceptable, depending solely on whether they were in love with a man. The same was true of Jews.

Hal Boyle reports from the Second Infantry Division in Belgium, tells of the mystery surrounding the death of a German non-com whose body was found entangled in barbed wire, his throat bruised from apparent strangulation, and another bruise found on his forehead. The theory was that his own troops had dispatched him.