OVER THIRD AND GREATEST VICTORY OF CAMPAIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1940, Page 5

OVER THIRD AND GREATEST VICTORY OF CAMPAIGN

Crushing Defeat of Russian Division FIGHTING CONTINUES IN BITTER WEATHER ATTACKS ON ENEMY COMMUNICATIONS (By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, January 8. Finland is wild with .jubilation over the third and greatest conquest, of the campaign, namely, the crushing' defeat, of the 44th Russian Division of 18,000 men, near Suomussalmi, which is reported in a special war communique issued in Helsinki today. This is the third Russian division -which the Finns claim to have routed in the war. .In Christmas -week the 163rd was wiped out. only a few miles farther north. A Moscow communique merely states that the weather hampered aerial operations, while warfare on the Ukhitinsky front in the north Grigoriev district near the Finnish waistline, and at Petrozavodsk, north of" Lake Ladoga, was confined to patrol work. The Finns are now concentrating attention on the Salla sector, north of Suomussalmi, where the Russians are endeavouring to reach Kemi.jarvi and Rovaniemi with a full division, whose attacks have been repulsed on four successive days. The Finns are particularly singling out field kitchens for attacks from the air, realising that the Russians can be conquered through their stomachs.