Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that by 8:00 a.m., the First Army infantry and tanks had pushed along a six-mile front three miles into the north flank of the German Bulge line, continuing to advance through a blinding snowstorm, reaching to within 13.5 miles of the Third Army vans pushing into the southern flank in the area above Bastogne.

The First Army captured Beffe, four miles southeast of Hotton and seven miles southwest of Grandmenil, twenty miles above Bastogne, and continued to move toward Malempre, three miles east of Grandmenil. The Army struck without benefit of air or artillery cover for the poor weather, but the tanks caught the Nazis almost completely by surprise.

Other First Army forces captured two towns southeast of Rochefort at the westernmost tip of the Bulge, as well as high ground overlooking the valley.

German reports indicated that the Ninth Army, brought from Aachen, as well as British tanks, were participating in the northern flank drive.

Three to five miles northeast of Bastogne, the Third Army had been stopped in its forward movement by fierce German counter-attacks launched against the 101st Airborne Division which had held Bastogne through the critical period between December 18 and 27.

Field Marshal Gerd Von Rundstedt began using armored elbows against both the First and Third Armies, especially as the weather worsened, to great effect.

The Seventh Army fighting in the Alsace Lorraine sector was now reported to be in better control of the area below Bitche. But the enemy was still making progress, now having reached to within 2.5 miles of the Alsace plain. The Nazis were in a position to threaten the gap leading into the German Palatinate of Bavaria.

The weather was bad all along the entire 70-mile front, ranging from snow to heavy fog. Bright winter sunlight shone over the Channel but inland conditions became steadily worse as the day proceeded. Tank treads and infantry boots were slipping and sliding against a thick blanket of ice and snow through the First Army offensive sector. Fog added to snow to complicate the Third Army advance. And to the south in the Vosges Mountains, the Seventh Army and the French continued their assault on the Germans amid yet more snow.

A piece tells of the Old Hickory 30th Infantry Division, led by Maj. General L. S. Hobbs, comprised of numerous North Carolinians, which had marched 48 hours from the Roer River south of Julich to encounter the Germans before they were able to break through Malmedy, then pushed the enemy forces from Stavelot, to prevent a northern breakthrough during the first day of the offensive on December 16.

The division had trapped and destroyed 92 enemy tanks and hundreds of armored and supply vehicles plus self-propelled guns, inflicting numerous casualties along the way.

After halting the advance at Stavelot, the Hickorymen gained control of a vital road network to Liege.

The stalwart division had seen continuous action since June 15.

Secretary of War Stimson warned that the Germans had sufficient means to launch another major attack and were not in the process of removing from Belgium as had been speculated during the early part of the week. He also stated that American loss of tanks during the German Bulge offensive had been only 6 percent greater than the expected rate of attrition for December.

The Secretary also announced that through December 21, not including losses in the Bulge offensive in Belgium and Luxembourg, American casualties totaled 638,139, an increase of 9,698 since the previous week. Of these, 556,352 were from the Army, an increase of 8,529, while the Navy total was 81,787, an increase of 1,169. Of the Army casualties, 103,991 had been killed, 326,127 wounded, 66,567 missing, and 59,667 captured as prisoners. The Navy had 31,332 killed, 9,277 missing, and 4,481 taken as prisoners.

In Hungary and Austria, the Germans sought to mount an offensive to break through the Russian lines from the north to supply the beleaguered defenders of Badapest, had made some advances against the Russians along the southern bank of the Danube southeast of the city. The offensive started on Tuesday morning from the area of Komarom, a Danube River town 45 miles northwest of Budapest, was being complemented by the defending garrison's attempt from within the city to fight through the lines to make joinder. Nearly a third of Budapest was now in Russian hands, with another 200 blocks captured during the previous 24 hours.

In Italy, the Canadian troops had continued an advance which had overrun the town of Conventello.

On Wednesday and Thursday, several hundred carrier-borne aircraft, supported by as many as 40 B-29's, launched attacks on Formosa, the first concerted attack on the island since October, and, according to Japanese reports, Okinawa. The B-29 strikes also reportedly included Bangkok on Tuesday. Other carrier-borne planes hit the Ryukyus, some 300 miles below Japan. The raids appeared to the Japanese to be forecasting, as they were, a new substantial landing force within the Philippines. It would be at Lingayen Gulf, where the Japanese had invaded on December 22, 1941.

The Tokyo broadcast also told of another raid on Nagoya by a lone Superfortress, as well as one south of Tokyo.

More uncontested landings of American troops took place on Mindoro Island in the Philippines, these along the east coast, just north of San Jose, the previous landings on December 15 having been southwest of San Jose. The Mindoro base at San Jose enabled land-based bombers easily to initiate strikes against Formosa and Manila, the latter being 150 miles to the north.

In Greece, General Nicholas Plastiras, leader of the 1922 revolution, took over as Premier of the country following the resignation the previous week by George Papandreou. He formed a "common confidence" Cabinet to which, as yet, the ELAS had not reacted. No ELAS representative had been appointed to the Cabinet, but the new Foreign Minister had ties to the left-wing group. There was no indication why Themistoklis Sophoulis had not formed a cabinet, as the previous reports had stated he had been asked to do.

The Office of War Mobilization now sought a ban for the remainder of 1945 on all national conventions. War Mobilizer James Byrnes explained that the reason for the ban was to ease the strain on rail and other transportation facilities, so taxed that supplies had not been getting to ports for shipment to the front with alacrity.

Colonel Roane Waring, president of the American Transit Association, supported the move and proposed that organizations hold instead "conventions in print" by sending pamphlets to members containing speeches that would otherwise be delivered in person.

For, as everyone knows, the reason people go to conventions is to hear the illuminating and entrancing speeches.

Gregg Cherry was sworn in as North Carolina's new Governor. He told the Legislature in his inaugural address that he favored the status quo on the state's tax structure, a statewide referendum on the sale of liquor, a State Constitutional amendment to provide equal rights for women, including jury service, an increase in starting pay for teachers to $125 per month, and raising the age through which education was compulsory from 14 to 16, among other things.

Get to the books, Jethro. The vacation is over.

On the editorial page, "Not Convinced" reports that a gathering in Charlotte of about a hundred physicians had resulted in an inconclusive stand on the proposed state hospital and medical care program. A voting minority approved the bulk of the plan, absent a part which proposed a medical school at the University in Chapel Hill. But most of the doctors had not voted.

"Birdseye View" again, as the previous week, looks out the window of the Ivory Tower, reaching to the four corners of the furthest expanses of the eternal, universal heavens, to make observation on that before their eyes.

"You Average?" first questions the authority of statistical abstracts which provided averages for the United States, as being useless to those far below the average in determining much of anything positive. It then points the reader to the table below the column which showed that the average citizen was earning in 1943 about twice that of 1938, with the average income at $1,031 in the more recent year.

"Couldn't Miss Him" remarks on the fashion statement made by North Carolina's new Senator, former Governor, Clyde R. Hoey, as he took his seat in Washington to replace Robert Rice Reynolds. His traditional habit suggested an earlier era, the jimswinger coat, gates-ajar collar, flowing cravat, high-topped shoes, and carnation in the lapel.

"Double Your Money" relates Department of Commerce data, accumulated and analyzed by the Public Administration Clearing House, showing the doubling of average national individual income, as stated in the column, between the years 1938 and 1943. It was 52 percent higher than in 1929.

Drew Pearson remarks that Prime Minister Churchill appeared still angry over the publication by Mr. Pearson of the letter the Prime Minister had addressed to General Scobie in Athens, instructing him to use force if necessary to restore order and to treat the ancient Greek capital as a "conquered city".

Marquis Childs writes of those self-fulfilling prophets who sought to capitalize on the current troubles among the Allies, possessed of the attitude that they had been right all along in saying that the Axis really intended no harm to the United States and that no good would come for the country from the war.

Samuel Grafton tells of open attacks on America by the London Economist and the Yorkshire Post based on British fears that the post-war world was being constructed by the United States with little if any regard to the position to be held by Britain. The Economist advocated splitting with America and siding primarily with Russia. The Post wanted America to explain how it intended to maintain the peace and to establish world trade for the good of all.

Hal Boyle, with the American troops in Belgium, reports on December 29 that one of the rifle company medics, "Battling Bernstein", during long hikes, used to yell, "Don't forget Pearl Harbor," in the process buoying the spirits of the soldiers. He could cheer up even the wounded. No skittish bone in him, the intrepid private had received a Bronze Star for gallantry during the action in the Normandy hedgerow country, had been put in for the Silver Star. But, at the time, he explained, he was in a daze for two days straight, having been hit in the head by part of a tree splintered by shrapnel. He only knew what they told him he had done.

A letter writer takes considerable umbrage at the words of Andrew Carnegie printed the day before under the rubric "Words of the Wise", re the nobility of those who rose from the ranks of the poor, giving the world its creativity and novel ideas.

The letter writer finds that so much bunk and sophistry, proceeds to tell of the manifold inventions emanating from the rich, including Gutenberg, Edison, the Du Ponts, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Verdi, Leonardo, the life-long subsidization by the Queen of Austria of Mozart, the Cabots, Columbus, Vasco da Gama—and Verrazzoni, apparently kin to Verozonni, of whom Siemo Frigatti had written on December 4, also linked inextricably to da Gama in that letter. Maybe Mr. Braderman knew Mr. Frigatti and they chatted over the back fence of Verrazzoni and of da Gama.

So, in any event, to hell with the poor, he seems to say. They are a lot of worthless bums from Palookaville who belonged in the poorhouse.

Eleventh Day of Christmas (even if it's Twelfth Night in 2012): Eleven Penguins Potato Mashing.

"Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason: 'Birds,' he said, 'build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build.'" --Oliver Goldsmith, A Biography, by Washington Irving, 1848