INVADERS’ OFFENSIVE HALTED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20120, 14 December 1939, Page 5

INVADERS’ OFFENSIVE HALTED

REINFORCED RUSSIAN ARMIES TERRIBLE COLD AND FROSTS TAKE TOLL GERMANY DELAYING PLANES FROM ITALY EFFORTS TO STOP WAR SUPPLIES (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Dec. 34, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Dee. 13. Hard fighting continued yesterday on the Russian-Finnish fronts. The Finns are reported to he holding the reinforced Russian armies and to have stopped the advance on lie Karelian Isthmus and halted a powerful offensive on the eastern front. A Finnish Army communique issued yesterday at Helsinki admitted that there had been incessant attacks on the Karelian Isthmus. The communique continued: “We repulsed the Russians, causing heavy casualties. Hundreds of dead arc lying before our positions. Numerous tanks were destroyed. The Russians were also crushingly defeated on the eastern front. Three battalions were annihilated and 27 machineguns and 25 quickfirers were captured. Terrible cold and frosts are causing hundreds of casualties among the Russians, prisoners telling ghastly tales of scntiics frozen to death at .their posts. Preparations for a mighty Russian offensive, eclipsing all the fighting thus far, continue to be reported. Huge reserves are believed to be stationed at several points from Leningrad northwards, ready to launch simultaneous thrusts. Russia is • reported to have 1,500,000 men and 1000 planes along the frontier and has been moving up men and materials in an endless stream for a whole week. The Finns are preparing a counter-stroke by pouring reinforcements into the Petsamo front Airmen Bomb Strategic Railway Finnish airmen, operating in bitter weather, bombed the strategic railway from Murmansk and tore up the track for 12 miles with the object partly of diverting the Russian attack. Reports of the augmentation of the Finnish Air Force by the arrival of a considerable number of Italian aeroplanes should be discounted. Authoritative British circles believe that very few Italian aircraft have reached Finland. It is understood that only a small part of the order given by the Finnish Government before the Russian invasion has been executed. The remainder of the order is held up in Italy because of the difficulties regarding transit raised by Germany who is now using, especially since the British Government ’s grant of licenses for the export of war material to Finland, her Strategic position tp-prevent a supply reaching that country from a State anxious to prove her sympathy with the latest victim of aggression.... After Britain granted licenses for the export of war material to Finland, Germany has openly come out on the side of the aggressor. •Official sources confirm that Germany is making-full use of her strategic position to prevent supplies reaching Finland from other countries and also that Germany is holding up orders placed in neutral countries before the war.