'Furnish Line Resists Russian Hammer Blows

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 3, 4 January 1940, Page 7

'Furnish Line Resists Russian Hammer Blows

HELSINGFORS, Jan. 2. A reorganised Russian army, under General Stern, and numberinf 200,000 men, to-day launched a freat frontal attack on the Mannerheim Line, the Finnish defence lino on the Karelian Isthmus, in a blinding blizzard, but failed. One hundred thousand Finns, onethird of the total Finnish army, are holding the assailants at bay despite the tactics of the Russians l / in pressing in simultaneously on both wings and on the centre in the hope of preventing the Finns from transferring reinforcements to threatened points. The Finns shot down seven Russian planes. Meanwhile, the Finns, moving swiftly on the Kuolojarvi front, in the north-east, threaten to encircle and annihilate 16,000 Russians. It is reported from Copenhagen, but without confirmation, that the Finns hace cut off 10,000 Russians from their bases in Petsamo and Murmansk, in the Arctic region, after defeating the Invader* at Nikkelby, a mining centre in the Petsamo area. Russian aeroplanes have damaged §0 Finnish towns, but the damage is insignificant from a military point of view. Russian artillery has been pounding the Finnish lines for 36 hours with increased intensity. The gum fire is andible aft Viborg, at the northern end of the isthmus. All reports agree that the Finns so far have not yielded an Inch. A large numbei of the Russian wounded freeze to death in No Man's Land. Russian bombers have set on fire the centre of Turku, a port at the junction of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland which has been used recently as a receiving-depot for material dispatched by the Scandinavian countries for the assistance of Finland. Turku Castle was set on fire by a Russian bomber yesterday when two people were killed and four wounded It is still burning to-day. It dates from the 13th century, and houses Finland’s •Jest museum.