Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the First Army had captured Leipzig.

A thousand Germans with 20 tanks set out from the British sector into the rear of the Ninth Army at captured Stendal, seeking apparently to rescue the besieged pocket in the Hartz Mountains, southwest of the Ninth Army's five-mile deep bridgehead beyond Barby.

Among the cities captured by the Ninth in the Ruhr, now completely vanquished, were Duesseldorf, Solingen, Remescheid, Fuerth, Zwickau, Luneburg, Ansbach, and Uelsen, the latter captured by the British Second Army following a six-day battle.

The British moved to within six miles of Hamburg, 35 miles of Luebeck, and 57 miles of Kiel, and reached the lower Elbe along a 20-mile front. Bremen was under siege as the British were in its suburbs. Harburg was now within light artillery range.

In Holland, the Nazis had spitefully flooded the western end of the Zuider Zee, north of Amsterdam, and other areas south of the region also, without any military advantage.

The Seventh Army was fighting to capture Nuernberg, as Dessau and Halle were on the verge of falling.

The Third Army had moved across the northwest tip of Czechoslovakia to Bad Elster in Germany, five miles northeast of Asch and 30 miles west of Karlsbad. German reports placed the Army within 95 miles of Prague and 62 miles of the Skoda munitions works at Pilsen.

The Eighth Air Force struck with 800 heavy bombers and 550 fighters against airfields in southern Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Again, a combined British and Russian raid hit Berlin the previous night for the second night in a row. The RAF, during the afternoon, had hit Pasing, west of Munich, serving Berchtesgaden by railway.

In the wake of the revelations following liberation of the concentration camps, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald in Weimar, Prime Minister Churchill gave warning to the Germans, in a notice to be signed by President Truman and Premier Stalin, that atrocities in the camps would not go unpunished at war's end and were receiving top priority in Big Three discussions.

He pushed aside questions arising as to when V-E Day might be announced, stating that it would only come under joint announcement with the Russians, and that no plans as yet were extant to make any such announcement. He puzzled as to why the questions were even being asked.

Under invitation from General Eisenhower, a special parliamentary delegation would depart the next day to obtain firsthand observation and evidence of the atrocities at Orhdruf, Belsen, and Buchenwald.

A correspondent from Stockholm, just returned from Berlin the previous week, reported that the city was in chaos, that the black market reigned, prices on essentials were through the roof, and German Reichmarks were considered worthless, merchants desiring either gold or bartered items.

On the Eastern Front, Polish forces, according to Warsaw radio, fighting alongside the Russians, had crossed the Oder and Niesse Rivers, with the Second Polish Army having pursued the Germans to Rothenburg on the west bank of the Niesse, 12 miles north of Goerlitz.

It was reported from Paris that Berlin was receiving artillery fire from the Russians.

Russian forces had captured Seelow and Wriesen, advancing to within 10 miles of Berlin. German radio stated that Forst on the Niesse, 65 miles southeast of the capital, had fallen.

The State Department reiterated its insistence that, unless the Polish government were reorganized per the Yalta agreement, to incorporate elements of the London government-in-exile, the Lublin Government would not be invited to the San Francisco Conference, despite renewed Russian exhortations to that end.

In Italy, some of the toughest fighting of the entire campaign was now ongoing south of Bologna. The Fifth Army was within eight miles of Bologna, as the Eighth was flanking the city in its drive on the road to Ferrara.

On Okinawa, Marines of the Third Amphibious Corps reached the northern tip of the island, 325 miles from Tokyo. The 24th Army Corps remained in a stalemate at the southern end of the island on the advance to Naha.

American casualties for the first month of operations on Okinawa had reached 7,908, including 1,482 killed, 1,765 missing, and 4,760 wounded. Most of the casualties thus far, 4,700, were in the Navy, including 989 killed, 1,491 missing, and 2,200 wounded, most from a single destroyer which had been sunk and others damaged. The Japanese dead numbered 9,108 on Okinawa and the nearby islands, Ie Jima and the Keramas.

The 77th Division made notable gains on Ie Jima.

On Mindanao, 35 miles of coastline was secured.

In central Burma, the British captured three major towns.

Fighter planes from Iwo Jima struck Tokyo airfields.

President Truman met with Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley of Kentuucky, House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, Tennessee Senator Kenneth McKellar, president of the Senate, occupying the Constitutional role therefore of the Vice-President, and House Majority Leader and future Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts, this group of Congressional leaders unofficially now called the "Big Four". The new President assured them that he remained committed to the legislative program of President Roosevelt, including the Bretton Woods agreement to establish the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, extension of the reciprocal trade agreement act and, without amendment, the Selective Service Act, and cooperation in the United Nations Organization. No new agenda for legislation was discussed.

News Associate Editor Burke Davis, still in Washington, had lunch with syndicated columnists Drew Pearson, Marquis Childs, and Constantine Brown, to try to obtain their impressions on President Truman and his political future. They all pretty much concurred that he would have a honeymoon period, after which, once he inevitably began stepping on toes, his political capital would be spent. He was shrewd, sensible, and a man of strength and determination. But it was doubtful whether by 1948 he could accomplish enough to run successfully on his own, especially as post-war unemployment would inexorably come to pass.

They all agreed that he would replace Secretary of State Stettinius, Mr. Pearson and Mr. Childs believing that James Byrnes would get the nod, and Mr. Brown thinking it might be either Mr. Byrnes or former Senator Guy Gillette. Mr. Brown stated that he had sought to publish an article saying as much on Sunday, but the Washington Post had refused publication.

Mr. Pearson commented that the New Deal likely had died with President Roosevelt, but that, if anything, Harry Truman was more liberal than his predecessor. Death had come at a propitious time, with unemployment on the horizon and Administration-backed programs recently defeated or stale-mated in Congress, the work-or-fight legislation and even Lend-Lease renewal. The President's place in history for having led the effort to win the war, he continued, was solidified and could not be harmed by the post-war downturn in the economy.

A prominent member of the Washington chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution had died at her home and was found to be in possession of the remains of her mother, mummified in a glass-covered coffin with which the woman, according to a neighbor, sat everyday, seeking to commune with her mother's spirit.

Her mother had died either in March, 1912 or on April 15, 1912—the same date, of course, on which the Titanic sank. Her mother was not on the Titanic, but rather died in St. Louis and was shipped to Memphis for initial embalming, whereupon the daughter had the body transported to Egypt for mummification, by one of Egypt's foremost mummifiers. Her mother's remains were then buried in Boston. But, the daughter became concerned about her mother's wish that she never be apart from her daughter, and so, in 1921, had the coffin exhumed, enclosed in glass, and placed in her Washington home, where it had remained for the previous 24 years.

On the editorial page, "USA and USN" remarks that President Truman, General Eisenhower, James Byrnes, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson each favored a single Department of the Armed Forces. And, the Department of Defense, initially, until 1949, called the National Military Establishment, would become a reality in 1947.

"A Realignment" opines that the San Francisco Conference would not be as thought a week earlier, subsequent to the death of President Roosevelt. The resulting uneasiness of the Russians and Britons would complicate matters. Moscow was said to be requesting a report from an expert on President Truman and was juggling its strength to meet a British threat in constructing spheres of influence in Europe; nevertheless, the personal appeal of the ordinary common man, Truman, was attractive to Stalin, who had come from an humble peasant background in the Crimea.

"Recommendation" discusses a five-man commission created by the 1945 Legislature in North Carolina to deal with returning servicemen. The appointments to the Veterans Commission had yet to be made and the column makes one recommendation from Charlotte.

"Outdated Miracle" reports of the appropriation in the Senate of $960,000 for construction of a floating airdrome in the middle of the ocean.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Claude Pepper of Florida stating to his colleagues that during the prior year, at least ten million workers received average pay of less than $1,200 per annum, less than 65 cents an hour based on a 40-hour week for 50 weeks. The workers in question did not include farm laborers—such as Jack Davis, forced to toil at many jobs—the professions, or government and domestic workers.

The War Labor Board had found that minimum income to afford the cost of living for a family of four should be $1,454 per year, or 72 cents per hour.

Undoubtedly, continued Senator Pepper, the wage stabilization program had kept the earnings at below the subsistence level. Tobacco, textiles, lumber, furniture, and apparel industries all paid a majority of their workers under 65 cents per hour. These members of society in war-essential industries had not tasted the war prosperity enjoyed by so many.

He thus advocated establishment of a 65-cent minimum wage as an essential part of assuring continuity of production in war industries for the Pacific war. It was not a trick to use the war as an excuse to achieve social legislation. It would improve low-wage industry and its production.

Drew Pearson asserts that President Truman would act as President much as he had chaired the Truman Senate Investigating Committee, having oversight of the military and especially supplies and waste. The committee had operated by teamwork, had only opened areas of investigation after Senator Truman had fully informed and discussed the issue with colleagues, both Democrat and Republican members.

Marquis Childs compliments President Truman for a good start, having made a speech on Monday to the Congress which projected confidence and yet humility, a genuine attribute of his character. He affirmed that the objective of the war, to obtain unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, would continue.

He would allow the generals to conduct the war to its conclusion, providing only the minimum oversight necessary of the Commander in Chief. He had been a fighting man in World War I, but then came home with the aim of training to be a concert pianist. His experience in the Great War had taught him to hate war and that men must learn to avoid it at all costs to preserve civilization.

The President intended to insure that the San Francisco Conference, set to start in six days, would achieve the machinery necessary to keep the peace.

Thus, the tragedy of the loss of President Roosevelt had taken place in wartime and, nevertheless, a smooth transition accomplished under the Constitution to a new President, the more remarkable for his having been on April 12 a part of the Executive Branch for less than three months. It stood as a rebuke to those who had clamored "dictatorship" during the Roosevelt era.

Yet, it was to be understood that the pledges of cooperation were coming in the wake of the tragedy and sense of loss, that with the passing months ahead, those pledges would inevitably lose some of their color and force. The new President would ultimately find himself measured against his predecessor, a larger than life figure, nearly deified in life, surely to be so in death, and the tendency would always be to say that no matter what Truman would accomplish, Roosevelt could have done it better.

The familiar smile and resonance of voice of the father figure was now gone. A new person had to be looked to for these same reassuring qualities which so much of the country had come to know and trust during the previous twelve years.

Samuel Grafton comments on the continued impressive initial performance of duties by President Truman, that he had not succumbed to the temptation of seeking to appeal to Roosevelt enemies by using catch phrases designed to wink and nod at them in an effort to suggest that things would be dramatically different in his Administration. Instead, he consistently reaffirmed his intent to follow Roosevelt policies. He was not bending over to be conciliatory to the enemies of the Roosevelt Administration, though in time he would need to moderate his stands, just as had President Roosevelt, to achieve coalition. Truman was thinking as a President, not as a candidate seeking to curry favor from various factions.

Hal Boyle, with the 69th Division in Naumburg, tells of American infantry having drafted a Hungarian general to disarm 780 Hungarian troops who had marched from the woods to surrender. The general obliged and all of the soldiers were cooperative.

Still, snipers, including civilians, were at work in the town two days after it had surrendered. And two threats had been communicated to the town's burgomeister for following American military orders to restore normal civil life. Civilians tossed from windows five revolvers among 5,000 German prisoners in an effort to enable an insurrection. The M.P.'s took the guns and cleared civilians from a three-block area at the place of internment.