Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: S8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than 2,000 bombers dumped approximately 3,000 tons of explosives and incendiaries on Berlin in the most concentrated air attack ever on the Nazi capital, meeting no opposition by German airmen. Thousands of refugees in Berlin were killed in the raid, unable to find shelter in the open city. The bombing, including eight direct hits on the German Air Ministry, created an unbroken trail of fire and smoke more than two miles long and a mile wide.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur's American troops captured Manila, establishing temporary headquarters on the outskirts of the city in order to direct its complete liberation. MacArthur accomplished his first objective - the liberation of 3,000 American and British prisoners at the Santo Thomas concentration camp, where prisoners of war had been detained for 3 years. President Roosevelt hailed the liberation of Manila as a warning to the Axis that "their world of treachery, aggression and enslavement cannot survive in the struggle against our world of freedom and peace."
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army crashed through the Siegfried line fortification northwest of Prum. In a companion attack the west wall was dented in at least three places along a 35-mile front. The discovery of many abandoned pillboxes gave evidence that the Germans would soon be forced to withdraw to the far side of the flooded Rhine river in the face of increasing Allied assaults.
The Allied leaders - Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt - released news from their conference being held somewhere near the Black Sea, stating that they had reached complete agreement on military operations against Germany and were planning to postpone settlement of Europe's frontiers until France could be included in the deliberations. After determining war strategy the Big Three moved on to the larger issues of establishing international security and a future world organization.
Tremendous new stocks of supplies were being poured into mountain strongholds in the Munich area, where Adolf Hitler was preparing a last-ditch defense after Berlin and northern Germany were conquered. Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler was enlisted to join Hitler in the command of thousands of fanatical Nazis expected to fight to the last to defend the fuehrer.
\ Cave Spring High School student Emily Domalski did the research for this week's column.
by CNB