Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140094
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Boring through blinding snowstorms in 54 degree-below-zero weather, more than 700 American warplanes reached the German industrial center of Stuttgart in perfect bombing formation and carpeted a strategic airfield and congested freight yards.
A new Gallup poll revealed that two out of every five Americans had not attended church in the past month despite a renewed interest in religious matters among the American people. Ninety-six percent of Americans believed in God and 76 percent believed in an afterlife, the poll found.
Several congressmen were cool to the idea of bonuses for war workers, saying the idea smacked of "paid patriotism."
Private first class Marion Buford Blair Jr., stationed with the Army Air Corps in Salina, Kan., received his Eagle Scout badge by proxy at the New River Valley court of honor in Radford. Blair was a member of Troop 56 in Blacksburg before entering the service.
Veteran 77th Division troops captured the bomb-battered port of Ormoc, the main Japanese base on the west coast of Leyte Island in the Philippines. It was the first big American ground victory since Gen. Douglas MacArthur led his forces back to the islands 52 days earlier.
For 18 days, the U.S. 29th Division fought to drive the Germans back across the Roer and in the process took the Julich sports stadium, its swimming pool and a nearby strongpoint called Husenfeldt Gut.
The New York Giants became undisputed champions of the National Football League's eastern division, defeating the Washington Redskins 31-0 before 35,540 fans.
Henry County's casualties since the start of the war totalled 223, including 65 killed in action and 10 others missing in action. The county was 40 percent over its total in the purchase of war bonds.
A coal shortage was causing a hardship for Roanokers as the city was caught in the grip of the worst winter storm in two years.
Athens was reported calm as a representative of a leftist faction was scheduled to meet with a British Army major to accept British terms for ending the Greek civil war. Meanwhile some U.S. congressmen were demanding the Roosevelt government get tough with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who they accused of joining the Soviets in carving up Europe while American blood was being spilt to defeat Germany.
U.S. troops, in a surprise leapfrog move from Leyte, landed on Mindoro Island, going ashore against initially weak Japanese resistance at a point 130 miles south of Manila.
Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch's 7th Army joined five other Allied armies then battling the Nazis on their own soil, smashing several hundred yards into Germany through the historic Wissenbourg gate.
by CNB