Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Russians had attempted a crossing of the Oder River in the area of Kustrin, 40 miles east of Berlin, and that forces were threatening both sides of Frankfurt along the Oder. The German High Command, however, blacked out reports from the sector.

Moscow dispatches indicated that the Russians had encountered thick minefields and heavy artillery resistance from the Germans all along the 90-mile front threatening Berlin. The entire front within Germany now stretched 375 miles, including areas of the provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg, containing Berlin, and Silesia.

The Russians were now to a point where, despite having reached the good roads of Germany, logistics would begin to play a major role. Supply lines still relied on the snowbound and potentially muddied roads of Poland across 250 miles of the plain. While frozen during the winter months and thus able to be crossed by vehicles and sleds, by late March and through April, they would become mud in the spring thaw. The Polish rail lines, including those of tunnels and within stations, had to be altered to accommodate the wider gauged wheels of the Russian trains, a time-consuming task. It was believed, therefore, that the Russians would need to halt their drive before the thaw and establish a line to which supplies could be brought. The Oder presented the ideal line for the purpose.

The Russians, however, while the last 40 miles would take the better part of the next three months, had other ideas.

On the Western Front, the Seventh Army and the First French Army at noon entered Colmar at its northern end, 40 miles south of Strasbourg. The action followed the clearing of the west bank of the Rhine for 30 miles and laying siege to the Neufbrisach bridge, reaching Biesheim. The railroad bridge at that point was one of the few still intact across the Rhine; its length was 120 to 220 yards. A late report from Paris had indicated that the French had captured Colmar, but the latest official reports stated only that fighting was taking place within its streets.

To the north on the central front, the Second Division of the First Army advanced three miles eastward to Schoonsseiffen, ten miles inside Germany and twenty miles southwest of Euskirchen. Both the First and Third Armies made progress through uncontested rows of dragon's teeth and undefended pillboxes, as the belief continued to prevail that the Germans were withdrawing much of their Siegfried Line defense to the East.

Other units crossed the German border south of Monschau and fought within the streets of Undenbreth on the Siegfried Line. Ramstheid and Neuhof were captured.

The threat to Strasbourg had largely been dissipated at this point, with gains from the north pushing the Germans fifteen miles from the Alsatian capital.

It appeared that a major offensive of the Allies was being prepared as a meeting between General Eisenhower and General Bradley had just concluded.

Clearing weather had permitted full air support on the front for the first time in ten days. Allied planes also struck Berlin.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson provided the latest casualty figures for the week: 650,420 Americans killed, captured, wounded, or missing in the Army; 86,922 in the Navy. The number had increased by 35,392 since the previous week, again the dramatic rise in the Army figure, 33,469, being the result of the casualties being tabulated out of the Battle of the Bulge, now over. The figures represented casualties suffered through December and reported through January 21. Thus, large increases would continue in those figures for the ensuing three weeks. The number killed had reached 121,676, 4,420 more than the previous week. Wounded were 379,638, an increase of 23,000. Of these, 186,026 had returned to duty. Missing were 91,573, an increase of 6,000, and prisoners totaled 57,533, an increase of 101, bearing in mind that those on prisoner rolls often shifted to other categories with fresher information. The Navy increases in casualties over the prior week were relatively small, 500 additional men killed, 1,300 wounded, 135 missing, and one less taken prisoner.

The Eighth Army on Luzon had fashioned a pincers clamp on Manila by Wednesday morning, as the Eleventh Airborne Division landed at Batangas Province, 67 road miles southwest of the city, pressing eastward toward Tagaytay Ridge, commanding the highways leading to Manila and the Cavite naval base 32 miles distant. It was the second Eighth Army landing on Luzon within 48 hours and, like the first one, had caught the enemy by surprise, being accomplished without loss. It was planned tentatively as a reconnaissance mission to test enemy resistance, but with no opposition encountered, turned into a full-scale invasion.

Sixth Army units, meanwhile, moved to within twenty-five road miles of the city from the north at the Angat River, heading toward Malolos, twenty miles from the city.

The combined movements, said General MacArthur, should prevent any attempted joinder by the enemy forces to the south of Manila with those to the north. He indicated that the First Cavalry Division, which had enabled victory on Leyte and in the Admiralty Islands invasion, was driving toward Manila. The 32nd Division which had defeated the Japanese in the Papuan campaign was also present on Luzon, fighting in the northern sector, where they had just seized San Nicholas on the Cagayan Valley Highway, a vital link for the Japanese.

The 486 Americans freed from a Japanese prison camp on Luzon on Tuesday expressed their desire to return to the fight against their former captors. Many had been forced into the Bataan Death March of May, 1942 and were possessed of bitter memories. Their diet had consisted primarily of rice. Some of the guards would attempt deliberately to lure the prisoners into a no man's land at the fence by holding out the offer of candy and tobacco. The penalty for succumbing to the temptation was death or whipping once the line was crossed.

Minor infractions of camp rules were punished by crowding twenty men into a small cell where they were forced to stand for twelve hours and would be awakened every hour during the night.

Prisoners who managed to remain relatively healthy were shipped to work camps in Japan.

A photograph shows the reopening of the Ledo Road, connecting with the northern section of the Burma Road into China, enabling finally, after three years, resumption of land transportation to supply the Chinese war effort against the Japanese.

The War Production Board ordered amusement facilities in ten Eastern and central States to cease use of all natural and mixed gas until further notice because of shortage during cold weather. Theaters, night clubs, bars, and other such places were on the list of establishments affected by the order. Use of artificial gas was not prohibited. Presumably, that included laughing gas.

The House Banking Committee reported that it would approve the bill to divorce the Reconstruction Finance Corporation from the Commerce Department to clear the way for the confirmation of the appointment of Henry Wallace to become Secretary of Commerce.

Among the names floated about as potential nominees to head RFC after it would be separated were future Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson, at present Economic Stabilizer, Joseph P. Kennedy, former Ambassador to England and former head of the Maritime Commission, Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and shipbuilder Henry Kaiser.

Sail on, O Ship of State... We've gone to Malta and Yalta in a leaky-sieve egg crate.

On this day, obviously not reported, the President arrived on Malta to meet for a day preliminarily with Prime Minister Churchill and the Western Allied chiefs of staff to consult on strategy before pushing on to the harsh environs of Yalta in the Crimea to meet with Premier Stalin, to begin on Sunday and last a week.

On the editorial page, "Transformation" finds remarkable how soon Senator Clyde Hoey had shed his conservative fiscal past when Governor of North Carolina and now stood in favor of a bill which proposed to have the Federal Government provide the states 100 million dollars for education after one year from the end of the war and 300 million per year for the duration.

"An Even Dozen" comments on the two recent near defeats in the Congress of Administration proposals, the work-or-fight legislation and the Henry Wallace nomination. It now appeared that both would be headed off with substantial compromises. It remarks that the President had been able successfully to compromise legislation many times during his twelve years and turn apparent defeats into seeming victories. It posits that he would replace Henry Clay in American history as the Great Compromiser.

"Root of Evil" expresses the presumption that sports fans were shocked at the revelation that five Brooklyn College basketball players had accepted a $1,000 bribe to throw a game.

It goes on to remind that betting in sports reduced the sport to prostitution. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis had fought gambling in baseball, going back to the infamous Black Sox scandal.

Sports franchises and teams could not bar the bookmakers who set up gambling houses on sports contests. But such operations made ripe the atmosphere for seeking players willing to accept bribes.

It is a bit of irony that a player for Coach Allen at Kansas would, in 1958, be hired at the University of North Carolina as an assistant coach and, when the program came under investigation for being involved in a point-shaving scandal in 1960-61, as well as recruiting violations and some tendency to pugnacity on the court, the head coach Frank McGuire decided, with urging from Chancellor William B. Aycock, to move on to greener pastures with the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA. The assistant, Dean Smith, was then hired as the young coach of a program on probation and only allowed to play 17 games, of which it won eight in 1962.

He would win a few more before retiring, obviously fed up with losing.

We make note that we stood by Coach Smith throughout those early days and defended, nearly to the point of fisticuffs on more than one occasion, against scurrilous and ill-mannered remarks of Wake Forest Demon Deacon followers, and we have the scars to prove it.

Time, as they say, however, wounds all heels and floats all Heels through the air also. At least, that is what we think they say.

In any event, it would only be five short years, in 1966-67, with signs aplenty during the two years prior to that, before it was plain that a special coach had arrived on the scene in Chapel Hill.

We salute him not only for the 36 seasons of enjoyment, even if occasionally his players produced a few tears other than from happiness, but most of all for running a clean and sharp program with stress on academics as much or more than sport.

No Dean Smith player would have ever taken a bribe. They knew better. The penalty would have been unthinkable. We cannot imagine what would have happened. Scalping would likely be a preferable punishment. Rikers Island, with nothing to eat but cockroaches, would have been considered a vacation in a lovely garden of plenty by comparison.

We do admit, ourselves, however, to have been sorely tempted on an occasion or two, such as in 1977, to have sunken to the low life of kidapping, to disport a player or two a few miles away from the arena, a player or two who Coach Smith insisted, against all apparent rationale dictating to the contrary, on putting into the line-up. But we knew there had to be some ultimate poetic justice at work somewhere in the mix and so kept the faith and gave not into and bucked those reckless temptations, sorely, however, desirous of our fair hand though they were.

In any event, no matter what walk of life you are in, never, ever take a bribe. For you are then in the Devil's pay and it will never end, never. And that Devil is not Blue. You may wind up being buried in the desert, in fact. Just say no.

And if you see someone doing it, by all means report it. It is your duty as a citizen, even if they may gang up on you and seek to ruin you for blowing the whistles on their bribes. They only destroy themselves in the end.

"High Heroism" commends the heroic rescue by the Rangers of the 513 prisoners on Luzon, many of whom had survived the Bataan Death March. General MacArthur, it indicates, decorated all of the prisoners and the Rangers when they returned safely to base.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Engel of Michigan protesting against the budget of the now permanent House Committee on Un-American Activities, finding that it had appropriated to it $1,560 for a janitor, as had other committees. In all, there were 30 such janitors. Congressman Engel wanted to know what these janitors did for these little committees, some of which met only once or twice per year.

Mr. Mitchell, as Attorney General in the Nixon Administration and in his subsequent capacity as chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect the President in 1972, used to clean files quite regularly. Perhaps, he was simply saving the Government and then the Nixon campaign money, not hiring a janitor to do the work.

Drew Pearson reports of the likelihood, come April 1, of another coal strike by UMW as the current union contract with mine owners would expire. John L. Lewis was demanding that a new contract provide for across-the-board wage increases, a differential in wages between 2nd and 3rd shift miners, and a raise of $1.25 per day in portal-to-portal pay. But Economic Stabilizer Fred Vinson was opposed to the raise based on the previous year's raise in pay to miners to bring them more or less in parity with other industries.

Marquis Childs discusses the superannuated adolescent, King Peter of Yugoslavia, 21-years old, and creating problems aplenty with any chance of compromise between the government-in-exile in London and the Partisans of Marshal Tito, who, with Russian assistance, had liberated most of Yugoslavia from the Germans. King Peter had dismissed the Prime Minister of the London exile government as well as most of the Cabinet ministers. There was no government thus to send to Yugoslavia to act in coalition and moderate Tito and the Partisans, as desired by the British. Marshal Tito was not upset for he believed that it would mean he would be able to wield power alone.

Hal Boyle, with the 104th Infantry Division in Germany, tells of the troops of one company attempting to take a pillbox, blocked by a field full of mines intervening. With enemy gunfire whizzing about, a private from Kokomo, Indiana, volunteered to dig an avenue of attack through the minefield. Two of his buddies, after all, had already been killed and were lying dead in the snow. So, he headed directly into enemy fire, crawling along on his stomach, digging as he went, stopping every few feet or inches, uncovering mines at each stop. He located and deactivated 25 mines in all.

An angry letter from Johnston County Democrats was addressed to Senator Josiah W. Bailey of North Carolina for his role in trying to block the nomination of Henry Wallace to Commerce. They accused the Senator of betraying his constituents and showing contempt for their welfare.

Another letter writer adds to the "Doggy Doggerel", (which we did not read ahead yesterday our own pun likewise in tail-toddle to achieve), commenting that she was impressed and inspired by the previous Friday's cartoon of Dorman Smith—as were we.

But just how in the world she was able to predict fifty years in advance the name of the dog of President Clinton is beyond our feeble intellect to explain or enhance. But she seems to have done so, and that's no lie with fiery pants. (Oh. You've had a dog, too, in your life.)

You never know though. The poetaster's paws may have been the catalyst for informing further Jesse Helms's contempt of President Clinton, spawned by no other reason than that Senator Helms thought him a Southern liberal, the worst kind of scum therefore imaginable in the Senator's mind, and also one with a college diploma to boot, all of which may have combined to instruct the Senator to recommend to Judge Sentelle the appointment of Ringo K. Galaxy to investigate President Clinton. You never know.

And just how the letter's author got "Fala" to rhyme with "valor", you probably would have to be either from New England or the South, fully to comprehend the errata.

We, ourselves, would have used, in place of "valor", "Cuba", that is as long as we were assured that President Kennedy would not have been reading it aloud.

Anyway, C.C., if we may be so familiar, we recommend that you not quit your day job to become a full time poet peculiar. You might blow it. And that would be a real drip freeze in finery from which most word-keys register demurrer.