“WAR IS ON”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1939, Page 5

“WAR IS ON”

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT IN FINLAND RUSSIAN ATTACKS BY AIR LAND & SEA. QUICK DECISION SOUGHT. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, November 30. The Finnish Foreign Office spokesman announced dramatically at 9.20 a.m.: “The war is on.” Airraid sirens were then sounding, traffic had ceased, and steel-mel-meted wardens had taken control. In the raid on Helsinki airport incendiary bombs were dropped. The British United Press correspondent at Helsinki says that the air-raid warning sounded at 9.25 a.m. and the people went to the shelters. One twin-en-gined Russian plane was seen and Finnish anti-aircraft guns opened fire. Earlier six Russian planes circled over the harbour entrance. Incendiary bombs were also used in a raid on Wiborg, where several fires started. The raiders dropped handbills urging the populace to co-oper-ate with the Soviet. Vammelsu was bombarded from the sea. probably by the Kronstadt naval base at the head of the Finnish Gulf. From the Baltic Sea Russian planes bombed an entire valley believed to be called Emso, which is near the Soviet frontier and contains many cellulose factories. Vital hits were not scored, but one bomb aimed at a factory is reported to have struck a nearby hospital. Russians unsuccessfully attempted to bomb an electric light plant in a town named Imtrata. A small island in Helsinki harbour was hit by a bomb aimed at the city. Reports from Copenhagen state that the Soviet fleet could be seen from the Helsinki waterfront. Russian troops crossing the Karelian border first penetrated a strip of land which Finland had refused to yield to the Soviet during the protracted negotiations which broke down on November 13. The Soviet bombardment is reported to have broken the telephone communications between Helsinki and Suojarvi, where Soviet troops are believed to have occupied a strip of Finnish territory. Russia launched her attack by air, land and sea simultaneously, directing artillery fire at Suojarxi (on the Finnish frontier north-east of Sortavala), while infantry thrust in the far north to Rybachi Peninsula and Kola Bay (on the Arctic Ocean). From the sea, warships shelled the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland. Artillery opened fire near the border station of Terijoki (25 miles northwest of Leningrad). The Exchange Telegraph agency's Helsinki correspondent says that messages from Moscow indicate that the Soviet military leaders took the view that if Finland was to be brought to her knees action must be taken without delay because the Gulf of Finland will be frozen within a month. The eastern section of the gulf is already freezing. A Moscow message says that the United States’ offer of her good offices reached the American Embassy snortly before the hostilities opened, and it was then stated that the offer would be presented to the Soviet Foreign Office later in the morning. The .authorities in Moscow refuse to (■onllrm Hie invasion. SOVIET DENOUNCED -COLD AND CALCULATED CRIME.’’ NEW YORK, November 30. The New York "Herald-Tribune,'' in .■I leader, says: "In bold, crude, barefaced mendacity. the Soviet Government has not a peer in history . . . . 11. may be of little moment to the Kremlin Io know that if Finland is invaded it will have the moral support of every man and woman in the United Stales whose opinion is worth consulting .... The Soviet will stand self-con-victed in this nation's sight of a coldly calculated crime against human decen-