Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501270014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his fourth term as president of the United States in a 15 minute ceremony that took place in front of a crowd of 7,806 people. Roosevelt set the theme for his new administration in these words: "In the days and years that are to come we shall work for a just and durable peace as today we work and fight for total victory in war." Roosevelt's new vice president, Harry S Truman, also took the oath of office. The oath was administered by the outgoing vice president, Henry A. Wallace.
The allies signed an armistice with Hungary, narrowing Hitler's list of European cohorts. The pact was made in Moscow where the document was signed by Marshal Klementi Voroshilov for the United States, Britain and Russia.
The Red Army invaded the main body of Germany in massive strength, sweeping 19 miles inside industrial Silesia on a 56-mile front and capturing the German military shrine of Tannenberg in a new 16-mile lunge into southern East Prussia on a 50-mile front.
The U.S. Third Army, led by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, overran northern Luxembourg, crumbling the once-powerful south flank of the Germans' Belgian bulge. Gains of nearly five miles were made on the western and southern fronts with the enemy racing for the haven of the Siegfried line.
Adm. William F. Halsey's U.S. Third fleet warplanes hammered the large Japanese air base of Okinawa in the Ryudyu islands. A powerful fleet of B-29 Superfortresses followed through the next day with a new assault on the Japanese mainland, striking the aircraft center of Nagoya for the sixth time.
The Nazis enlisted citizens of Berlin to dig new trenches needed to guard the city from the quickly approaching Allies. Gestapo chief Himmler's whipmen ordered every able-bodied German male to be thrown in to what he called the "Red inferno of the East,'' stressing the need for manpower to fight against the advancing Russians. Himmler set up a new Eastern Front Defense Council with declared "unlimited power" and himself personally presiding.
Cave Spring High School student Emily Domalski did the research for this week's column.
by CNB