MANY BATTLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1939, Page 7

MANY BATTLES

FINNS WITHSTAND RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHTS

Huge Enemy Reserves Beginning to Tell SINKING OF SOVIET BATTLESHIP REPORTED FIERCE ATTACKS ON MANNERHEIM LINE (By Telegraph. —Press Association. —Copyright.) LONDON; December 2O ; In the main .Russian attack between Kunla.jarvi and Kankjarvi. in northern Finland, the enemy are losing heavily, sillies a message from Helsinki. Further Russian attacks on the east, front, have been repulsed. The Finns deny the Russian investiture ol the northern town of Kermijarvi, east of Rovaniemi, and declare they will defend it to the death, but Russia’s huge reserves are beginning to tell, while the Finns can have few reserves. Women volunteers are operating on the base lines to release men lor the front. Twenty Soviet planes Hew over ITanko, Wiipuri and other points in southern Finland and dropped bombs around Helsinki. This raid was the first made on the capital for a fortnight, but the raiders were kept a,way from the centre ol the city, and dropped their bombs on the outskirts. Finnish coastal batteries at Koivisto engaged in a lively action with Russian air and naval forces, shooting down four or more planes. The coastal batteries at Bjorko (on the south shore of the Karelian Isthmus) are reporter! to have sunk the Russian battleship October Revolution. The story is that the Russians knew that the batteries’ extreme range was three miles, so they kept, just outside it. The Finns however, brought, up more powerful artillery and discharged a salvo when the battleship was just, under four miles from the shore and sank lie)’. (The October Revolution (Oktiabrskaya Revolutia), formerly the Gangut. is a battleship of 23.000 tons armed with 12 12-inch and 16 4-7-inch guns. She was completed in 1915.) The Russian attacks on the Mannerheim Line are described as the fiercest since the fighting began. The Finns say that they have driven back all these attack's "with heavy losses. The latest Soviet communique claims that Russian planes shot down .12 Finnish aircraft. One Russian plane has not returned. The military operations are mainly skirmishing and artillery duels.