Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 29, 1994 TAG: 9406300032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Admiral Chester Nimitz reported the sinking of five additional Japanese ships and destruction of 72 enemy planes by American carrier bombers and fighters. The American task force attacked Japanese island strongholds within 800 miles of Tokyo. Nimitz also reported that American ground forces on Saipan were moving northward in the face of strong enemy opposition.
American troops closing in for the kill drove within 1,000 yards of Cherbourg's southern city limits and were so close they could see the Germans destroying installations inside the port city in Northwestern France. Later in the week they began storming into the city from three sides and cleared it of all German resistance.
A great storm devastated parts of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, killing 142 people and injuring hundreds of others. Numerous reports flowed in of towns and villages struck by tornadoes.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the allied invasion force in France, made his second visit to the Normandy beachhead since the June 6 landings and came away satisfied with what he saw. He spent much of his time quizzing newly arrived troops to see if they could handle themselves in case of a counterattack.
Germany declared martial law in Denmark after Danish patriots blew up the country's biggest armament works.
Adolf Hitler's headquarters said that German prisoners had been murdered in Normandy and threatened that if the reports were true 10 U.S. prisoners would be shot for every German.
Republican delegates stormed Chicago for their first wartime convention since 1864 with talk increasing about a ``hands across the nation'' ticket of Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York and Gov. Earl Warren of California. Warren, however, removed his name from consideration as a vice-presidential candidate.
A new period of educational opportunity for women was realized when Mary Washington College became a division of the University of Virginia and Radford State Teachers College became Radford College Women's Division, Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Amazing recovery shots from traps and rough gave Babe Didriksen Zaharias her second women's Western open golf championship in four years.
Captain Phillip Shafer of Roanoke, who had flown 144 air transport missions in the China-India-Burma Theater - most of them over the Himalaya Mountains, said the Japanese were losing their aggressiveness.
Russian troops had completely surrounded the White Russian city of Vitebsk, trapping more than five German infantry divisions.
The strain on overburdened railroad facilities was increasing at a dangerous rate, the office of war information warned. Organized movements of 1.5 million servicemen and women each month require constant service of more than half the Pullman cars and nearly a third of all coaches.
Lt. Robert M. Brice, son of Mr. and Mrs. Claude G. Brice and a Jefferson High School graduate, was killed in France on June 6, according to a War Department telegram.
Wendell Wilkie, the 1940 GOP presidential candidate, lambasted a Republican foreign-relations platform plank for its vagueness. Wilkie advocated the immediate creation of an international organization of United Nations.
Gov. Thomas E. Dewey accepted the 1944 Republican presidential nomination and pledged that if elected he would carry on the war to victory. Gov. John W. Bricker of Ohio was picked as his running mate.
The office of Price Administration ordered the restoration of ration point values for canned peas, tomatoes and asparagus and hinted that rationing might be reinstituted for other vegetables.
The state bar of Texas denounced the U.S. Supreme Court in a resolution, saying the court had lately overruled long-standing precedents without good reason.
by CNB