Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a large number of Japanese soldiers or civilians were observed by a spotter plane leaping to their deaths into the sea off the southern tip of Okinawa, the first such mass suicides since the Saipan campaign one year earlier. Many thousands of other soldiers and civilians were surrendering. Of the few thousand enemy troops still fighting, many were wounded. Some of the fiercest fighting was encountered at Mabuni, near the southeastern coast of the island. Another contingent, trapped east of Kunishi Ridge, continued to fight to the death.

Meanwhile, two Marine regiments, the Eighth Regimental Combat Team and the Fifth Regiment, captured 700 yards of the south coast of the island, fanning out after breaking through Japanese last-ditch defense positions, separating the enemy into three pockets south of Komesu. American tanks were now on the plateaus aiding in the clearing of cave positions.

Admiral Nimitz stated that enemy defenses were collapsing as of nightfall the previous day.

A map shows the progress of the battle on Okinawa since its inception April 1, preceded by five days of operations in the nearby Kerama Islands.

Some 450 B-29's attacked Shiznoka, 85 miles southwest of Tokyo, Toyohashi, also on Honshu, and Fukuoka on Kyushu, dropping 3,000 tons of incendiary bombs. All three cities had been bombed previously but not by incendiaries. Fires were widespread as a result of the attacks. Two of the B-29's were reported missing from the raid. Flak was medium and fighter opposition weak.

Tokyo radio also stated that 30 Thunderbolts had raided Omura on Kyushu, west of Omuta, raided on Monday.

On Luzon, the enemy troops were too disorganized to reform to make a stand during the last hundred miles before the northern tip of the island at Aparri, in the face of the advancing 37th Infantry through the Cagayan Valley. The enemy was expected, however, to fight to the death at Nagulian, and so an American air strike on the town was ordered.

On Borneo, the Australians had moved four miles below Tutong, to within twenty miles of the Seria oil fields. Other contingents which had recently landed at Weston on Brunei Bay advanced two miles along the Jesselton railroad to the village of Linghungan. The Diggers landed unopposed ten miles southeast of Brunei as they searched out enemy troops in mopping-up operations.

In China, the Chinese advanced to within three miles of Liuchow, the site of the former American airbase taken by the Japanese the previous November.

A German policeman, Hermann Karman, claimed to have seen the bodies of both Hitler and Eva Braun immediately outside the Reichschancellery on May 1, set afire, with a gasoline can next to the burning corpses. He described a horrific odor. He then saw the chief medical officer of the Chancellery at the scene who had poisoned Hitler's favorite Alsatian dog, Blondie, four days earlier. Herr Karman concluded that the doctor had poisoned Hitler and his bride as well.

Whether Blondie was burning also, he did not impart.

Other subsequent reports from persons claiming to have been present in the Fuehrerbunker in the last days confirm that Hitler's doctor first demonstrated the cyanide pills on Blondie before providing them to Hitler and Eva Braun, on the advice to swallow, then shoot with a pistol to the head.

Correspondent Charles Chamberlain reports that a tip from a German soldier, disgusted with war and those who had started it, had led to the capture in Hamburg of former Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop, captured in the nude, with his poison vial tucked between his legs so securely that initial searches did not locate it.

German Lt. General Fritz Bayerlein, commander of a panzer division in North Africa, Normandy, and the Ruhr, and once the chief of staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, told investigators for the Army during his interrogation that greater tactical air operations against German ground troops after August 1, once the Allies had reached Brittany, would have enabled the Allies to have won the war sooner.

Too bad they couldn't tell him that if only they had possessed the atomic bomb a year earlier, it most certainly would have been over a lot sooner.

General Eisenhower reviewed the cadets of West Point, as relatives of the cadets milled around the General following the review. The wife of a retired staff sergeant kissed General Eisenhower "maternally"—as opposed to?

President Truman, in Olympia, Washington, visiting Governor Mon Wallgren, was reportedly disappointed to hear that the San Francisco Conference might drag on into the following week, again urged the American delegation to speed it up, that he still wished to try to address the conference on Saturday afternoon at the conclusion of its business, following passage of the Charter.

Press secretary Charles Ross stated that the President would hold a press conference the following morning, his first outside the White House, fueling speculation that there might be an announcement regarding the prospective Big Three meeting in July.

On the editorial page, "It's About Time" discusses the appointment of a committee to study the role of Charlotte Memorial Hospital in the battle against polio. The Health Department appeared not taking adequate steps to prevent spread of the crippling disease.

"Many Tongues" suggests that the Chicago Tribune might have been tempted to headline the story on the Supreme Court decision against the Associated Press handed down Monday, holding 5 to 3 that the A. P. by-laws worked to produce a monopoly, as: "AP No Monopoly, Three Justices Say". The rival Chicago Sun had supported the theory that the A. P. constituted a monopoly.

Given the splintered majority and dissenting opinions in both that case and in the 5 to 3 Harry Bridges case, which ended the current effort to deport Mr. Bridges based on alleged "affiliation" with a Communist organization, the editorial expresses that it felt at liberty to speak out. It suggests that the Court was establishing a system wherein doubt and uncertainty were guiding lights and established practices not provided support. The liberalism being demonstrated by the Court, it finds, was only leading to confusion.

"Boost for Planning" approves the action of the City Council in referring back to the Planning Board the proposed municipal projects, a War Memorial and a new library, to determine how much they would cost, and to determine if there were other projects which should be considered. It appeared to be a method to further the goals established by Mayor Baxter rather than frustrating them.

"He Cusses, Too" celebrates the return home of General George Patton after his successful campaign in Europe, living up to his dream of destiny of which he had so often spoken.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Jere Cooper of Tennessee speaking in favor of extending the Renegotiation Act by six months, which allowed the Government to renegotiate war contracts to avoid excess profits to war contractors. He asserts that it was necessary to continue with this practice, as well as with repricing and the excess profits tax, to afford the tools to prevent excess profits from the war. Such profits would only embitter the returning soldiers for the fact that millionaires had been created out of the war which they had fought on a soldier's pay.

Drew Pearson reports that Congressman Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the future Senate Minority Leader, had, upon his return from a trip abroad to study U. S. foreign relations, told President Truman that the primary need for winning the peace would be hiring the proper diplomats. Mr. Dirksen told the President that he and the President had both served in World War I as field artillery soldiers and thus neither had much conception firsthand of modern warfare. But they both had an idea of what the men had gone through in this war and wished to make sure that they had not fought it in vain. Mr. Dirksen urged a 100 million dollar appropriation for the State Department to build the necessary diplomatic corps to preserve the peace. The President appeared largely in agreement.

Samuel Grafton wonders why the House was so insistent upon trying to cut in half the budget for the Office of War Information, from 35 million dollars to 17.5 million. General Eisenhower had just informed them that the Army would have to take over the tasks OWI had provided, at equivalent cost and numbers of personnel. Thus, it could not be explained simply in savings of money. Rather, it appeared as a function of principle, simply opposition to another organ of the Executive Branch performing a valuable function. It did not seem to matter to the Congressmen that the British Ministry of Information had a similar budget, the equivalent of 33 million dollars. Nor did it seem to matter to them that, at such a critical point in time, a month and a half after the end of the war in Europe, shutting down OWI would be saying that America had nothing of consequence to impart to the people of the Continent.

Marquis Childs likewise addresses the issue of the cut in appropriations to OWI and also views it as a necessary agency for America to continue to have its voice heard abroad, both in Europe and the Middle East, as well as enabling the dropping of leaflets over Japan urging surrender.

A local merchant writes a letter favoring publication of the names of price ceiling violators among merchants and enclosed a printed editorial favoring same from a newspaper in Tennessee. The News notes that it regularly published the names of alleged violators when charges were brought, as well as the results of judgments against the violators when rendered.

We still, however, have never determined whether there were ceilings on eggs, or whether it was just a rumor manufactured in the basement.