RAKING FIRE OF DEFENDERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 December 1939, Page 5

RAKING FIRE OF DEFENDERS

Violent Attempt to Break Finnish Line SOVIET ASSAULT FAILS COMPLETELY (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) HELSINKI, December 24. An official statement, summing up three weeks’ war, states: “The Russians’ losses are enormous. We have cut up and scattered entire companies and regiments which were mercilessly driven into the raking fire of the defenders. M e have destroyed or captured over two hundred tanks, dozens ol planes, dozens of guns and hundreds of machine-guns. Our losses were comparatively slight. The Russians, repeatedly and violently attempting to break our defences, failed everywhere. The enemy pressure was heaviest on the Loimolakitela line, north from Ladoga, against which the Russians concentrated in vain. The Russians killed a hundred civilians on the first day of the war —a slaughter which steeled the people’s will and power to resist.” The Russians.attacked the centre of the Mannerheim Line on Sunday. They rained shells on a sector two miles long for an hour at the rate of two hundred a minute. Then about nine hundred men rushed forward but broke under the Finnish lire, leaving three hundred dead.

PLANES BROUGHT DOWN Another Finnish communique yesterday stated that Soviet planes ma-chine-gunned civilians in several places and attacked coastal batteries Finnish pursuit planes brought down 14 Russian machines during numerous aerial battles, and the Finns lost two machines. • Claiming that there were 7000 dead in two battles, a Finnish war communique yesterday gave details of a victory at Aglajarvi. "The whole of this area is now in our hands,” it stated. ‘‘The advance continues. Eight tanks and quantities of guns, rifles and ammunition have been captured.” A feature of the campaign, the Associated Press correspondent states, is the employment of so-called human searchlights carrying electric projectors, which the Finns switch on when they reach an objective, after which in concert they throw the dazzling beams toward the Russians as the riflemen and machine-gunners open fire, speedily terminating the action. Military theorists foresee similar tactics on the Western front. The Finnish infantry is reported to have advanced behind tanks recently captured from the Russians. It is recalled that the Finns fought the war of independence in 1918 largely with arms and ammunition captured from the Reds. Most of their army rifles and many of their field guns today use ammunition of the same calibre as the Russians. The Finnish communique, dealing with the Russian retreat in the Salla sector, estimated that the enemy lost 5000 dead. It said that the route of the Finnish advance was marked by a long trail of wrecked tanks and corpses. LITTLE ACTIVITY REPORTED DURING WEEKEND. DAMAGE TO NAVAL BASE. According to Daventry reports there was little activity over the weekend on the Finnish front. It is now learned that the Russian naval base at Kronstadt was severely damaged by accurate fire from coastal batteries during the first few days of the war. So effective were the coastal batteries that fires could be seen raging in Kronstadt for four days. It is believed that this was the reason why a Russian cruiser, which was damaged in early fighting, was forced to (proceed to Tallinn instead of Kronstadt for repairs. ITALIAN PLANES INTERCEPTED MACHINES BEING RETURNED. NEW YORK. December 24. The Rome correspondent of the “New York Times” says that the Italian planes recently detained by Germany en route to Finland are being returned to Italy. They were shipped in part fulfilment of an order given long before the Russian invasion. It has not been decided whether to reship the planes by another route.

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