FIERCE FIGHTING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20111, 4 December 1939, Page 7

FIERCE FIGHTING

DEADLY WEAPON NEW FINNISH RIFLE CAPTURE OF INVADERS SINKING OF WARSHIP (ReccL Dec. 4, 9 a.m.) LONDON. Dec. 3. It is officially announced from Helsinki that more than 35 Russian tanks' were destroyed in Karelia yesterday. A Finnish official communique says that two Russian companies in the south were wiped out largely by the use of a new Finnish automatic rifle, firing as rapidly as a machine-gun and which is specially constructed for forest fighting. The Finnish troops captured 1200 Russian soldiers. One Finnish warship was sunk during an engagement with the Red Fleet off Hanko. Soviet warplanes machinegunned sailors struggling in the water. The Russian warship sunk is reported to be the cruiser Kirov. The Osram at Hels ; r>ki were destroyed. The Finns admit the loss of Hogland and also the Russian occupation of the Seiskaari Peninsula.

It is reported from Bergen that the Finns are fighting doggedly in the extreme north. The Finns are burning houses, slaughtering stock and piling their belongings on sleighs for transportation to Norway. The burning buildings are visible from the Norwegian frontier where streams of women and children are constantly arriving accompanied by food-laden lorries. The fleeing population is determined that the Russians will find the countryside bare. Russian troops are only 10 miles from the Norwegian border in the north, where 800 Finns are opposing a force of several thousand Russians. A Russian army communique stated that yesterday the Soviet troops had advanced 16 miles in the Karelian isthmus. The retreating Finns burned villages and forcibly evacuated the occupants