BEWILDERED RUSSIANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1940, Page 5

BEWILDERED RUSSIANS

Captives declared that they were never told against whom they were going to fight. They are mostly collective farmers with brief military training and seem bewildered by their late. Russian reinforcements to repair the ravages of the battle are arriving from Siberia, but the Paris wireless states that they will reach their destinations decimated. Many have been shot for insubordination. A Finnish communique states that Soviet gunfire on the Karelian Isthmus prefaced fierce infantry attacks, which the Finnish artillery and infantry fire repulsed. Other attacks met a similar fate. A Moscow communique reports that nothing of importance occurred and planes merely made reconnaissance flights. The Finns are fighting on eight or, including the air and sea—lo fronts. Their exhausting ammunition and the problem of fresh supplies, despite those captured, is serious, states a Helsinki report. The Russians, on the other hand, seem to possess inexhaustible resources. AIR OPERATIONS The air front extends over almost ’the whole of Finland, and the Russians employ 300 planes daily but have achieved nothing of military importance. Finnish aircraft claim to have penetrated far behind Leningrad and to have dropped millions of photographically illustrated phamphlets showing the humane treatment of Russian prisoners. Finnish pilots also attacked the Russian base at Liinahamari, the port of Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean, apparently using fast foreign bombers. Daventry messages states that all land operations in the north of Finland are at a standstil on.account of the bad weather, but in the centre and south the conditions have improved. Helsinki and several ports on the Gulf of Finland were again bombed by Soviet planes. Several buildings were destroyed, but there were few civilian casualties. , SOVIET DENIAL AIR RAIDS ON OPEN TOWNS. "FANTASTIC ANTI-SOVIET INVENTIONS.” LONDON. January 4. The Soviet Embassy in London, charging the Press and radio with "fantastic anti-Soviet inventions, comparable with those of 1919,” says that they have described in the most lurid terms alleged large-scale air bombardments of open towns in Finland. “This is demonstrably absurd when one compares the casualties in a single Japanese raid with all the raids with which the Soviet is accused,” the Embassy states. POLISH PILOTS DESIRE TO HELP FINLAND. (Received This Day. 10.55 a.m.) PARIS. January 4. Five hundred Polish pilots are seeking permission to organise an air force to aid Finland.