Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the 24th Corps infantry, against light resistance, had reached the eastern shore of Okinawa at the village of Tobara, bisecting the island ten days ahead of schedule, advancing the previous day 2.5 miles. Some units had merely walked the distance the day before. The only resistance encountered was along the center of the north-south beachhead, now extending eleven miles, where the enemy was holed up in caves. Awashi, southeast of Tobara, also was captured. American forces had reached Katsuren Bay, north of Nakagusuku Bay, once a principal harbor for the Japanese Fleet. Bisecting the island cut off the main city of Naha, the capital.

Observation planes were already operating from the captured airfields at Katena and Yontan.

The commander of ground operations was Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., head of the Tenth Army, including Army infantry and Marine units. Maj. General Roy Geiger's Third Marine Amphibious Corps was also involved in the initial landings, and had cut off Zampa Cape.

Deceptively, the invasion appeared at this juncture the easiest of the entire Pacific war, with more civilians observed than Japanese. No prisoners had as yet been captured.

American officers believed that the Japanese had expected the landing to the south, premised on the invasion a week earlier of the two Kerama islands, fifteen miles to the south of Okinawa.

AP correspondent Leif Erickson suggested that the enemy could make a strong stand along a two-mile wide isthmus some ten miles north of the American beachhead.

On the Western Front, the Fourth Armored Division of the Third Army advanced 19 miles eastward into the outskirts of Gotha, 26 miles west of Weimar, the founding place of the Weimar Republic, 75 miles from Leipzig, reaching a point three-fourths of the way across Germany to Czechoslovakia, apparently, according to German radio, extending the lines to Suhl, 65 miles from the Czech border, and closing to within 140 miles of Berlin.

To the northwest of the Gotha spearhead, the 80th Division of the Third Army was fighting within Kassel, 165 miles from Berlin, and the city appeared ready to fall. Tank and airplane factories within the city were still operating as fighting street to street continued. The breakthrough of the perimeter during the morning had followed a three-day fight. Large explosions within the city during the morning indicated German demolition at work. One report stated that the city, home to the Hessian mercenaries who fought in the Revolution against the American colonists, had already fallen to General Patton's troops.

Eighty new German tanks, with their paint barely dry, charged through American infantry in the southern section of Zwehren and knocked out several American tanks and tank destroyers before being forced back into Kassel. Six of the tanks, including four Panthers, were wrecked.

It was a spray job.

To the north of these drives by the Third Army, the British and Canadians, in their drive to entrap German troops defending Northern Holland and what remained of the rocket coast installations, advanced to within five miles of Osnabrueck, to within 25 miles or less of the Zuider Zee, and within 60 miles of the North Sea and the cities of Bremen and Hannover.

The Ninth Army was fighting within nine miles of the Weser River while the First Army again resisted attempts by 110,000 trapped Germans to break out of the Ruhr pocket at Winterburg, now captured, and at a point southwest of Neu Astenberg, from which the First Army troops had been driven for a time before backing the Germans out again. The Second Armored Division of the Ninth had reached the Werre River south of Herford, nine miles from the Weser River and 50 miles from Hannover. The Weser and Elbe were the only rivers remaining to be crossed before Berlin.

The forces outflanked Bielefeld, 190 miles from Berlin, and captured Recklinghausen on the north side of the Ruhr pocket, clearing almost all of the area north of the Emcher Canal between Duisburg and Dortmund.

General Eisenhower announced that the entire Ruhr had been encircled, cutting off German Army Group B and parts of H, trapping some 21 divisions, and cutting the vital industrial area from the rest of Germany.

To the south, the Seventh Army continued its drive toward Nuernberg, Heilbronn, and Stuttgart.

Don Whitehead reports that Major General Maurice Rose, commander of the Third Armored Division of the First Army, which had spearheaded the drive from the Rhine bridgehead deep into Germany the previous week, had been killed by gunfire near Paderborn on the previous Friday.

The General had gone to the front line area to direct his troops in their attempt to capture an important road junction. As he returned from the lines in his jeep, along a road which a short time earlier had been cleared to allow use by First Army traffic, he and his driver, followed by an armored car full of officers, suddenly found themselves headed for a line of Tiger tanks.

The driver sought to evade capture by turning off the road into woods but quickly ran into another tank; at that point, General Rose surrendered. The German tankman began shouting instructions in German, but the General did not understand. He began reaching for his shoulder holster to turn over his gun, when he was shot through the head by the tankman, the German apparently believing that the General was reaching for his gun. The driver and the other officers managed to escape the scene on foot.

Some 750 American heavy bombers, escorted by 650 fighters, struck the harbor at Kiel in Germany, breaking a two-day weather caused hiatus on flights from England. It had been speculated that the Germans might attempt to launch V-bombs from U-boats out of Kiel.

A contingent of the Fifteenth Air Force hit Tannach-Stein in Austria.

The RAF the previous night again hit Berlin and Magdeburg, following a two-day lull, the first respite for Berliners from nightly raids in over a month.

On the Eastern Front, the Russians had captured Wiener Neustadt, 25 miles south of Vienna, and were reported by the Germans to have reached Baden, ten miles south of the capital. Also captured were Eisenstadt, twelve miles northwest of Wiener Neustadt, and Glognitz, eighteen miles to the southwest.

The Germans also reported that, as the Second Ukrainian Army closed in on Bratislava in Slovakia, it initiated a new drive from positions near Bratislava, probably aiming for Bruenn.

The Russians were also said to be increasing their artillery assault on Breslau in Silesia.

The Germans stated that they had observed considerable Russian activity behind the main Red Army lines to the east of Berlin on the middle Oder, suggestive of the final assault on the capital being imminent.

A report from Bern stated that 6,000 executions had been ordered by the Nazis for defeatism, sabotage, and demonstrations in Vienna. The Nazi puppet government had moved to Salzburg.

On Luzon in the Philippines, encirclement of the Japanese still fighting sporadically in the southern part of the island had been virtually completed by Sunday, after troops of the 14th Army Corps and the 158th Regimental Combat Team landed at Legaspi Harbor, the best port on Luzon's east coast, in the face of ineffective Japanese artillery fire. The troops quickly captured Legaspi City and its airfields with little opposition. The Navy and Fifth Air Force covered the operation.

President Roosevelt announced that the United States would not seek additional votes at the upcoming San Francisco Conference to charter the United Nations organization, a departure from a previous announcement on Saturday that the United States would, in accordance with an agreement reached at Yalta, have three votes to the British six votes and the Russian three votes. It was also stated by Secretary of State Stettinius that the agreement to provide Russia three votes, one each for the Ukrainian and White Russian Soviets, would be unaltered by the American change in policy.

On the editorial page, "After All Wars" discusses the topic of veterans benefits and predicts that, as with other wars, the benefits would come to be something of a racket, with politicians and veterans organizations being its chief proprietors. There were, it offers, certain basic things which the society owed to veterans, a start on a new civilian life, making up for the time and opportunity lost while in the service, care for the disabled and compensation for the sacrifice throughout the disabled veteran's lifetime. As well, there should be allotments for the dependents of those who had died in service, and for as long as the dependency would last.

"The Stuff's Good" reports on a pamphlet put out by the Women's Division of Allied Liquor Industries, suggesting that liquor was conducive to conviviality, "good fellowship and social relaxation".

And, per our usual practice, we assure, we did not read ahead from our note on Saturday to today's pieces. Spooky, huh?

But there is more.

"That one, by the way, was used in a Kentucky election campaign in 1943, and despite it, the Drys took a beating. No admission, you see, that there are pleasures in the cup, which is as bad—or almost—as taking the line that the danged stuff won't bite you if you keep foolin' with it."

Spooky, huh?

Looking at that video of the car on fire in Lexington on Saturday night, with idiots tromping all over it, we have to wonder why the thing didn't explode and bite a dozen or so people nearby. Good thing it wasn't a Pinto, we suppose. Maybe they siphoned the tank first—or drank it all.

"France Rebuilds" comments on the celebration in Paris for the crossing by the Allies of the Rhine. The Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris had been relit and the tri-color raised again over the Champs Elysees, as the French Army passed in review. Unity appeared to reign in France as the Communists set aside their own rally and joined in to help cheer on the 140 new units of the French Army.

"The Park Drive" discusses the prospective drive of the Charlotte Park Association to solicit support for the proposed 110-acre veterans memorial park, the first of its kind in the community.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Robert Rich of Pennsylvania engaged in debate on his proposal to scale back appropriations for forest trails and roads, yielding to Congressman Alfred Elliott of California in the hope that the latter might be getting ready to side with the proposal.

Drew Pearson reports that for months, Albanian radio had sought food, clothing, and medical supplies from the international community. The United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration, charged with feeding and clothing the occupied and liberated countries, had not yet been able to enter Albania for the fact that the British wanted to send 1,200 British Army officers into the country to supervise UNRRA efforts. The Albanians, fearing a repeat of Greece, had refused permission of the British to send the officers. Albania had never been occupied by an Allied army and the Albanians wished to keep it that way, even if it meant starvation.

Samuel Grafton continues his criticism of the American Bankers Association who had met the previous week and proposed that the Bretton Woods agreement not be affirmed by the Senate as to establishment of the International Monetary Fund. They approved of the World Bank, assured that the Bank would be sufficient to meet international contingencies, that loans could be made from it to nations in a crisis, and that therefore the Fund was unnecessary.

Marquis Childs continues to provide his impressions gleaned from his two-month visit to the European fronts, in France, Germany, Italy, and Yugoslavia. He reports that, no matter how hard the correspondents sought to convey the reality of the front lines, the medium of print was inadequate to report it. Progress always appeared easier in print than the fighting on the lines actually was.