Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505040025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Germans announced that Red Army tanks had burst three to four miles inside the flaming, rubble-strewn streets of barricaded Berlin in an overwhelming 16-army assault on the three-quarters encircled Nazi capital.
Three million terror-stricken Berliners, fearful of starving as beseiging Russians cut them off from the rest of the world, huddled in their cellars after being exhorted by Reich defense commissioner Goebbels to defend the capital to the death.
U.S. Fifth and British Eighth Army troops toppled the fortress city of Bologna, Italy and swept on 10 miles in pursuit of German troops fleeing for their lives across the Po River plain.
Competing against 66 other starters, Johnny Kelly of West Acton, Mass. won the Boston Marathon in a time of 2:30:40.2. He had won the race one other time, 10 years before.
PFC Ernest R. Metz of Roanoke, a medical corpsman with the 30th Infantry Division In Holland, was awarded the silver star by Maj. Gen. Leland S. Hobbs.
"I just wanted to dance," said Roanoke native Helen Faville after she sneaked onto the stage during an Arturo Toscani concert. She shocked some 6,000 concert patrons, who at first thought she was a part of the show and began applauding.
Tenth army soldiers marines had killed 11,738 Japanese troops on Okinawa and had taken 27 prisoners. Marines, meantime, had invaded small islands on each side of Okinawa, Taka and Sesoko.
The Jefferson High School band turned in its uniforms as the band programs at that school and at Jackson Junior High were cancelled after the induction into the armed services of Jerry R. White, the band's director.
"Old Blood and Guts" Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, 59, was raised to a four-star general as his tanks moved to within sight of Austria and crossed the Danube river.
Tokyo broadcasts complained that raids by U.S. Superfortress bombers were systematically destroying the Japanese race. The broadcasts said the raids had left 3.1 million Japanese homeless.
Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini fell into the hands of Italian patriots as he tried to flee Allied armies.
American and Russian armies linked up along a 200 mile front on the Elbe River with the first meeting of the two allies occurring at Torgau when three enlisted men and a lieutenant of the 273rd regiment of the 69th Infantry Division met patrols of the 58th Soviet Guard Division of the First Ukranian Army.
Italian partisans tried and executed fascist dictator Benito Musollini and his mistress and dumped their bodies along with those of other executed fascists in a Milan square just before troops of the U.S. 5th Army entered the city.
Berlin radio reported that Adolf Hitler had died while defending Berlin, but the Soviets said the architect of World War II had committed suicide. Admiral Karl Doenitz, who succeeded Hitler, vowed to continue the fight against Bolshevism.
General Dwight Eisenhower declared the German Army beaten, as German soliders surrendered by the hundreds of thousands all across the country.
by CNB