BATTLES IN FINLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 December 1939, Page 5

BATTLES IN FINLAND

SUCCESSES CLAIMED BY BOTH SIDES Finns Report Smashing Russian Divisions SHIPS SUNK BY COASTAL BATTERIES ATTACKS ON DEFENSIVE LINES REPELLED (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, December 18. Finnish cniinler-allacks on the northern and central fronts were amazingly successful, stated last night’s war communiques in Helsinki. Two Russian divisions comprising ”6.000 men wore smashed and nearly all taken prisoner. The Moscow radio this morning announced that the Russians have advanced 85 miles from the frontier in the Kntno sector and have also successfully attacked south of I’etsamo. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times’’ says the Russians continue to advance southward from Salmi,jarvi. The Finns are gratified with the successes achieved by their coastal batteries against the Russian Navy, whose operations will soon he hampered by ice in the Gulf of Finland. The Finns sank a new destroyer of the Gordi class on Friday and a patrol ship on Saturday. The Russians have again attempted to storm the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus, hut the Finns have driven them back. The Russian attack was made with the help of heavy artillery fire and a large number of tanks. The casualties Io the Finns in the north are not yet known. They have withdrawn to a prepared line, which they have christened Lapland’s Mannerheim Line. It is semi-officially stated in Helsinki that the Finns have destroyed 176 tanks.