COUNTRY LAID BARE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1939, Page 5

COUNTRY LAID BARE

HOUSES BURNED & STOCK SLAUGHTERED NOTHING LEFT TO INVADERS. REFUGE SOUGHT IN NORWAY. LONDON, December 3. The latest news from Moscow is that the Russians have recaptured Petsamo. Russian troops are only 10 miles from the Norwegian border .in the north, where 800 Finns are opposing a force of several thousand. The Finns are burning their houses and 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 the Russians will find the countryside bare. The Finnish troops who recaptured Petsamo yesterday marched throughout the night along roads deep in snow. They surprised the Russians, who did not dream that a counter-attack would come so soon. Finnish aircraft co-op-erated, heavily bombing the Russian positions. The fate of a Finnish force ent off in the vicinity of Petsamo is unknown. The Helsinki correspondent of the British United Press, commenting on the Petsamo fighting, says that refugees, who have swelled the population four times in the border village of Svanvik, explained the orderliness and foresight of the Finnish action. A squadron of Russian warships, attended by aeroplanes, approached the port, compelling the defenders to withdraw till they could engage the enemy on land. The Finns sank every vessel in the harbour, blocking (he fairway and also detonated mines embedded in the face of cliffs, the flying rock fragments being as effective as artillery. When eventually the invaders landed the quays and roads exploded as fresh mines went off. The retreating Finns set fire to the port in order io delay the Russians, and they will strike back today. Petsamo is now a N-up o p ;1K ’ nes reinforced Russian attack is expected lodsty.