Current Events January 1, 1944;

                     HAPPY NEW YEAR

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY JANUARY 1, 1944:

The Russian First Ukrainian Army, racing toward Poland and Rumania today as the new year opened on one of the great Allied victories of the war, has captured the fortified rail and regional center of Zhitomir and plunged far beyond through the rear guards of confused, disorganized Germans who were abandoning tanks, guns, supplies and dead in their rout.

A great fleet of American Flying Fortresses and Liberators bombed Paris for the first time since mid-September yesterday, blasting two vital ball-bearing plants and simultaneously blasting the
Nazi airbase at Chateau Bernard on the French west coast.
Adolf Hitler, in a grim New Year's message to the German people today offered them only hope of dogged resistance for thenlives and, anticipating invasion from the west, boasted that "wherever they land the Allies will receive an appropriate welcome."



 Tanks, Guns
And Supplies
 Break in German Line
Widened to 200 Miles,
General Retreat Seen
 OTHER ARMIES GAIN
biy The Associated Press
LONDON, Saturday, Jan. 1. —
The Russian First Ukrainian Army, racing toward Poland and Rumania today as the new year opened on one of the great Allied victories of the war, has captured the fortified rail and regional center of Zhitomir and plunged far beyond through the rear guards of confused, disorganized Germans who were abandoning tanks, guns, supplies and dead in their rout. Gen. Nikolai Vatutin's forces, which captured Zhitomir yesterday, were speeding west and southwest through a 200-mile breach in the Nazi east wall, far beyond the territory lost to an abortive German counter-offensive in November and December. After capturing 150 more communities yesterday, advance Soviet units were 35 miles from the pre-war Polish border and less than 90 miles from the prewar Rumanian frontier.
"Our tank and motorized troops dealt the enemy considerable blows, breaking through into his rear^to intercept most important communication. lines and smash .German' " reserves which came up to the front lines," said the midnight Moscow bulletin recorded by the Soviet monitor.
Large-Scale Retreat Seen 
___________________________________________________________________________________

 Heavy Raids
On Europe
Continue
 Ball Bearing Plants
And German Airbase
Principal Targets
 COAST IS POUNDED
By The Associated  PressLONDON, Saturday, Jan. 1.—
A great fleet of American Flying Fortresses and Liberators bombed Paris for the first time since mid-September yesterday, blasting two vital ball-bearing plants and simultaneously blasting the
Nazi airbase at Chateau Bernard on the French west coast.
The American heavy bombers were escorted by a powerful fighter force of American and British planes. The escorting fighters together shot down six German planes with a loss of only one of their "own.
Allied aerial forces in the Paris raid and other forays yesterday probably totaled well over 1,000 planes, and the operations maintained the great Allied year-end aerial offensive during" which
probably 3,500 planes swooped over German dominated Europe in a 48-hour period. Thus the Allies averaged almost 100 planes an hour, or nearly two per minute.
Bearing Industry Hard Hit
 The Paris attack, the first at the French metropolis since the bombing of the Caudron-Renault and Hispano-
Suiza airplane works and the Cam ball bearing works on Sept. 15, was designed to strike a further telling blow at the enemy's ball bearing supply so essential to his war effort. That particular industry already had been hard hit by .last fall's, American raids on Schweiniurfc, Germany, and Turin in Italy.



Hitler Offers German People
Little Hope in New Years Talk
Asks Dogged Resistance, "
As War Will Leave Only
Survivors, Annihilated
By The Associated Press
LONDON, Dec. 31.—
Adolf Hitler, in a grim New Year's message to the German people today offered them only hope of dogged resistance for thenlives and, anticipating invasion from the west, boasted that "wherever they land the Allies will receive an appropriate welcome."
In a long written message distributed by DNB to German, newspapers and recorded from a Berlin broadcast by The Associated Press, Hitler again sounded the German propaganda note that " in this war there will be no victors and losers, but merely survivors and annihilated."
A separate New Year order of the day to the Army called 1943 "a second year of great crisis" initiated by the Russian winter offensive of 1941-42.
Even as the Russians,.in one of their greatest victories of the war, were driving toward pre-war Poland's borders and drawing near Rumania's frontiers, Hitler said "a Napoleonic catastrophe seemed imminent for the German front, yet we were able to master the situation."
Germany, he said, was fighting with a "fanatical hatred," and inspired by "the old Biblical saying: "An eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth."