James L. Day,73, a retired Marine Corps general who earned the Medal of Honor for holding his ground on Sugar Loaf Hill in Okinawa during World War II, died Wednesday of a heart attack in Cathedral City, Calif.

He received the Medal of Honor from President Clinton on Jan. 20, more than a half-century after he was recommended for the honor for his role in the May 1945 battle for Sugar Loaf Hill on the Japanese island.

Samuel Blum,70, a writer and a former editor in chief of the Doubleday Book Club, died of leukemia on Oct. 22 at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Christopher Gable,58, an English ballet star who made an unusually successful transition to film and theater, died of cancer Oct. 23 at his home near Halifax in Yorkshire, England.

Dr. Hugh Auchincloss,83, a pioneer in breast cancer surgery, died Sunday of Alzheimer's disease in Westwood, Mass. His work contributed to a switch to less radical breast cancer

surgery followed by radiation or chemotherapy.

George McNew,90, a distinguished plant pathologist who directed the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research for 25 years, died Friday in Las Cruces, N.M. He published 155 scientific papers and books, his research focusing on chemical processes responsible for disease in plants.

Pub Date: 11/02/98