PORT CHANGES HANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1939, Page 5

PORT CHANGES HANDS

The port of Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean was captured on Friday by Soviet troops parachuted from planes, was later regained by the Finns, and has now been recaptured by the invaders. It is reported from Bergen that the Finns continue fighting doggedly in the extreme north. It is officially announced in Helsinki that more than 35 Russian tanks were destroyed in Karelia yesterday. The Finnish army captured 1200 Russian soldiers. One Finnish warship was sunk during an engagement with the Red fleet off Hanko, and Soviet warplanes machine-gunned sailors struggling in the water. Earlier a Russian cruiser, reported to be the Kirov, was sunk by the Hanko batteries. The official statement adds that a total of at least 19 Soviet planes have been shot down. Yesterday lhe Finns claimed that 18 Russian planes were shot down and two Russian infantry companies annihilated. The Osram glassworks in Helsinki were destroyed. The Finns admitted the loss of Hogland (an island in the Finnish Gulf), and also Russian occupation of the Seiskaari Peninsula. A Finnish official communique says that the two Russian companies in the south were wiped out. largely by the use of a new Finnish automatic rifle firing as rapidly as a machinegun and specially 'constructed for forest fighting. The Russians again bombed the port of Hanko and other towns in eastern and western Finland. The Finns retired along the Karelian frontier. On Friday bitter fighting was reported at Terijoki. where the Russians were keeping the Finnish defences continuously engaged with heavy artillery fire and bombing from the air. Successive waves of Soviet troops were reported to have been driven back. The Hanko fortress has answered fire from the Soviet warships throughout the last two days.