Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
nBaron Franz von Papen, former chancellor of Germany, was seized in the Ruhr valley by American troops and was believed to have been flown to the United States.
=R Von Papen told his captors, ``I wish this war were over.''
One them responded, ``So do 11 million other guys.''
The dawning of a new political era was marked in Washington as the capital paid its farewell to President Roosevelt.
In other capitals around the world, including Moscow, days of national mourning were declared following Roosevelt's April 12 death in Warm Springs, Ga.
Overflow crowds at the Pulaski First Presbyterian Church paid a final tribute to the late president, as did Virginians statewide.
Gov. Colgate Darden flew to Washington for last rites for Roosevelt at the White House.
The Portsmouth Cubs had been picked as the pre-season favorite in the Piedmont League. The Roanoke Red Sox were also shaping up as a well-balanced club, a report said.
The Second Armored Division, ``Hell on Wheels,''' was forced to give up ground to the enemy for the first time in over two years, when their bridgehead across the Elbe was attacked by two German divisions. The division was unable to send its tanks across to support its infantry.
Further to the south, Ninth Army units fared better, crossing the Elbe and sending patrols as far as the Berlin suburbs.
Addressing Congress, President Truman dedicated his administration to the war and peace ideals of President Roosevelt.
Allied air forces destroyed the remants of the German Luftwaffe, blasting 905 planes, most of them on the ground at bases where they had been hidden.
The American Fifth Army and British Eighth Army had launched a massive assault to drive the Germans out of northern Italy.
Adolf Hitler, in a hysterically worded speech, ordered his armies in the East and West to hold on, goading armies on the East to ``drown the Bolshevist onslaught in a sea of blood.''
U.S. 33rd Division troops had reached the outskirts of Bauio, the Philippine summer capital in mountainous northern Luzon, and rescued 7,000 civilians who had fled Japanese internment.
U.S. Third Army infantrymen crossed the border of Czechoslovakia, cutting Germany in two geographically, while other forces captured Magdeburg, southwest of Berlin, and battled to the heart of Leipzig.
War correspondent Ernie Pyle, beloved by GIs and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet to his temple during the battle for Okinawa.
Third Army troops were becoming increasingly angry over German treatment of American prisoners of war.
Patton's troops had already liberated several camps and had found the prisoners assigned to filthy, unheated quarters and given barely enough food to stay alive.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***