Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 16, 1994 TAG: 9403150109
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Six people perished, including one of Virginia's leading political figures and a widow of a former governor, when fire turned the fifth and sixth floors of the historic Hotel Jefferson in Richmond into shambles. At least 20 others were hospitalized for shock and burns. Among the dead were State Sen. Aubrey Weaver of Front Royal and Mrs. J.H. Price, widow of the immediate past governor of Virginia.
British pressure was applied on Dublin to accept the United States' request for the closing of enemy listening posts in neutral Ireland. In response Prime Minister Eamon De Valera gave the British a copy of the refusal letter he had sent to Washington. The U.S. government, in response, was considering a restriction on travel between Ireland and the United States. The U.S. demand was part of an effort to deprive the Nazis of spy centers before the allied invasion of France.
Lend-lease, President Franklin Roosevelt's potent economic and military weapon that helped turn the tide against the Axis, started its fourth year of operations with the value of supplies and services provided by the U.S. to its allies exceeding $20 billion.
James Clayton, a British engineer who pioneered the development of rayon in the United States and built several plants for the American Viscose Corp., including the one in Roanoke, died at his home in Torquay, England, James Breakell, his nephew who ran the Roanoke plant, reported.
Establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine was a "noble cause in which all persons concerned with human rights and plain four-square justice should take an active interest," said Rep. Winder Harris, D-Norfolk.
Dinah Shore, star of a Thursday program on WDBJ radio, was picked the nation's top female vocalist in a radio editor's poll.
Capt. Thomas Eugene West, an Army chaplain whose brother lived in Roanoke, said his unit had the highest IQ in the Army and that the 5,000 members of the the combat team were buying war bonds at 100 percent. Two thousand soldiers from the team had spearheaded every 5th Army drive in Italy. They were the 442nd Combat Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans.
Veteran catcher Bill Dickey, who sparked the New York Yankees to a World Series triumph over the St. Louis Cardinals in 1943, was re-classified 1-A by his Little Rock, Ark., draft board.
Pope Pius XII appealled to Allied and German leaders to spare Nazi-occupied Rome from becoming a battleground.
Lt. W.V. Warner of Narrows was killed in action as he flew over Italy. Two Roanokers, Sgt. Robert E. Bowers and Pvt. Paul C. Broyles, were missing in action on the Italian front.
Members of the Bedford County Board of Supervisors were cooperating with the American Legion Post in Bedford to secure the names of Bedford servicemen for a plaque in their honor. They had no way of knowing what awaited many of those men on D-Day, then only three months away.
The allies dropped more than 2,500 tons of bombs on the the fortress town of Cassino on the road to Rome and on targets above it. German survivors of bombing continued to fight back, though, as American tanks and infantrymen moved into the smoking ruins.
Eleven airmen died when an Army bomber crashed into the summit of Bull Mountain in Patrick County.
by CNB