Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9408160044
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than 200 Marauder and Havoc bombers carpeted the escape route of 100,000 Germans fleeing towards an escape gap near the French towns of Falaise and Argentan as U.S. and Candadian forces moved to close the gap.
Near Mortain, France, a U.S. batallion that had been surrounded by Germans for nearly a week and had defiantly refused a German demand to surrender was rescued by counterattacking U.S. forces.
Earl A. Fitzpatrick, a member of the House of Delegates from Roanoke, was named by State Democratic Chairman Horace E. Edwards to lead the Democratic campaign for the Roosevelt-Truman ticket in the fall.
President Roosevelt, returning from a tour of Pacific war bases and speaking to a national radio audience from the deck of a destroyer in the Puget Sound navy yard, said that Japan would have to be quarantined after the war until years of proof had shown the Japanese would cooperate in keeping the peace.
News of Southwest Virginia men killed and wounded in action continued to fill the local pages of the Roanoke Times & World-News. On Sunday, Aug. 13, 1944 those reported killed included: Pfc. James L. Jennelle of Christiansburg, a paratrooper killed on D-Day; Seaman Roland Guy Wells of Blacksburg; Pfc. Ray Kegley of Galax, killed in France on July 11; Pvt. Joseph B. Vaughan of Independence, and Pfc. Elmer Smith of Roanoke, killed in action in Italy.
Approximately 25,000 striking truck drivers in eight Midwestern states were ready to get the trucks rolling again, according to reports from a meeting of 103 truck operators in Minneapolis whose trucks had been seized by the government. Drivers had struck a week earlier when their employers refused to pay a 7-cent pay increase.
German losses in France were expected to reach 300,000 if the German 7th Army trying to escape through the Falaise gap was destroyed. It was revealed that Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was in command of the Third Army attempting to encircle the Germans.
U.S. and French troops supported by British air-borne units landed almost unopposed on the Mediterranean coast of southern France. In command of the ground forces was Maj. Gen. Alexander M. Patch Jr. of Staunton, a veteran of Guadalcanal and New Caledonia.
Cpl. Carter O. Lowance, a former Roanoke Times staff writer, was among the first paratroopers of the 82nd Division to land in France on D-Day prior to the beach landings.
Col. Marcellus A. Johnson Jr. of Roanoke was put in charge of one of the largest military hospitals in England. He was formerly vice president of Lewis-Gale Hospital.
French Resistance forces numbering 500,000 were reported in action throughout France helping to drive the German occupation forces out of the country.
U.S. armored forces stormed into Versailles, only four miles from Paris and smashed to the Seine, 30 miles to the northwest.
Miss Nora Spencer Hammer, in charge of polio nurse recuriting, issued her first appeal for Negro nurses as the number of Negro polio cases increased in the state.
A Special Note: In the past two months, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation in Roanoke has lost two strong supporters: John Will Creasy and, just this past week, Milton Aliff. Both were World War II veterans. Although Roanoke and surrounding communities have memorials to their war dead, a memorial to the special role men and women of Southwestern Virginia played in the Invasion of Nazi-held France is yet to be built.
by CNB