RUSSIANS REPULSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1940, Page 5

RUSSIANS REPULSED

FINNS CLAIM TO HAVE INFLICTED HEAVY LOSSES Main Attacks Made North of Lake Ladoga LONG RANGE GUNS SHELL VIBORG According to a Daventry broadcast, (lie Russians continue to attack spasmodically al many points along the Finnish line. Their main effort is being made north of Lake Ladoga, where the Finnish defences are not quite so formidable as they are elsewhere. The Firms claim to have repulsed two separate attacks north of Lake Ladoga in the past 24 hours, with heavy loss. One attack commenced the previous night and continued until daybreak. The Salla sector is still active an dthe Russians made two abortive attacks at Petsamo, in the extreme north. The city of Viborg has been shelled by long-range guns.

OFFENSIVE FAILS

THREE DAYS OF SLAUGHTER

ALL ATTACKS REPULSED. HIGH RUSSIAN MORTALITY. HELSINKI, January 24. The big Russian offensive north-east of Lake Ladoga collapsed after three days of slaughter. The Finns have repulsed all attacks, including the drives against the middle of the Mannerheim Line and also Kollaanjoki and Aittojoki. The Russians, hoping to smash the left wing of the Mannerheim Line, brought to bear the full force of the mechanised units. The tanks and planes were under the control of crack troops, but they could not even cut the railway to Sortavala, which would have intercepted the transport of Finnish soldiers and material.

The Finns definitely held iheir own against the waves of Russian attacks, besides threatening the Russian flank, which was the bastion of the offensive. The Russian losses already number thousands, which can be ascribed to their advancing in too close a formation because of their tendency to break or surrender if allowed to spread.” The high Russian mortality is due to their inadequate clothing, insufficient food, filthy personal conditions, a lack of medical personnel and a practice pf giving first aid to commissars and officers while wounded privates are allowed to freeze to death.

A Finnish communique states: "The enemy, supported by artillery. were repulsed when they attacked the Summa sector (near the centre of the Karelian Isthmus), where the Finnish guns demolished the Russian advance over the ice-covered lake of Muolaa, but the fighting continues. "The Finns heavily repulsed all attacks on the eastern front, destroying seven tanks.”

Together with the Russian effort to cut the railway at Sortavala, another attack on Wednesday was directed against the main road which runs through the middle of the Mannerheim Line to Viborg. Three days ago Soviet loud-speakers informed the Finns that this would be done in 48 hours, but this attack was repulsed by the Finns, as was another in the centre of the isthmus.

The offensive in the south was apparently on a larger scale than any of the prolonged attacks in the early days of the war.

A large section of the population has been forced to spend many hours in air-raid shelters, and the authorities have had to urge on the people the need for at least one hot meal a day. Another example of close harmony on the Finnish home front is that workers and employers have concluded an agreement to settle all differences between them by friendly negotiation.

HELP FROM ABROAD MANY DANES VOLUNTEERING. PURCHASES IN UNITED STATES. A second plane, laden with medical supplies for Finland, has arrived from London. There are hundreds of young Danes in the Finnish training camps, while 100 volunteers are leaving Denmark every week. Such a course is not permissible for actual members of the Danish forces, five officers of which were arrested when about to go to Finland from the Kestrup aerodrome. Six American volunteer pilots have reached Helsinki. The Federal Loan Administration says it is claimed that the ImportExport Bank has no jurisdiction over goods purchased with loan money after they leave the United States’ and therefore Finnish purchases in the United States might be traded in England and France for guns and ammunition.

GIRLS WOUNDED

WORKING IN AMBULANCE CORPS. WEARING LIEUTENANTS’ UNIFORMS. (Received This Day. 9.50 a.m.) HELSINKI, January 25. A Finnish surgeon from the front states that he operated on two Russian girls wearing lieutenants’ uniforms who had been wounded by rifle bullets while working with an ambulance corps. AIR SUCCESSES ITALIAN VOLUNTEERS BOMB SOVIET BASES. RUSSIAN DIVISIONS TRAPPED. HELSINKI, January 25. No fewer than 20 Italian volunteer airmen participated in the bombing of the Soviet naval base of Kronstadt and two of the Soviet bases in Estonia early this week. The Italians, who are highly trained, flew newly-arrived modern machines. Finland’s small air force is increasingly active. The most outstanding recent feat was performed by a pilot named Jorma, who tackled seven enemy machines and shot down six. The Finns declare that of 24 Soviet planes leaving the Estonian bases on bombing expeditions in the last three days only three returned. The other 21 were shot down. Two Russian divisions face starvation, being trapped near Aittojoki.