STILL UNSHAKEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 February 1940, Page 7

STILL UNSHAKEN

FINNS WITHSTAND HEAVY ONSLAUGHTS COUNTER-ATTACKS RESTORE LINE. AIR BOMBING & FIGHTING. LONDON, February 13. The Finnish lines are intact after the heaviest concentration ever seen on a 12-mile front along the Mannerheim Line. The Russians have expended 300,000 shells daily for days past. The Finns used short knives in hand-to-hand fighting. A Finnish communique says: “We repulsed attacks immediately south of the Mannerheim Line at Summa and Taibela and halted a Russian advance between Muolajarvi and Punnusjarvi where the invaders are trying to find another road to Wiborg. "Our counter-attacks restored the original line except for unimportant machine-gun posts. “We shattered a column of 100 sledges which were trying to relieve marooned Russians on the Pitkaranta Islands, north-east of Lake Ladoga. "The Russians bombed Porvoo. east of Helsinki, destroying many houses." The Russians have abandoned their artillery attacks on Bjorko as too costly, leaving the task to the air force, which has bombed Wiborg almost to fragments. Three British planes, piloted by Finns, beat off 20 Russian bombers in Central Finland, breaking up the Russian formation and driving the enemy planes in confusion to their base. Three of the largest Finnish banks show a marked improvement in business, an American donation of £150,000, part of the £400,000 collected, having reached Finland for the relief of refugees. Later dispatches from Finland (Coventry state that the attacks on the Mannerheim Line are of undiminished intensity and the fighting continues day and night, but the Finns were again reported to be standing as firm as a rock. The latest Soviet communique says that operations on the Karelian Isthmus are developing successfully and that large Finnish forces which counter-attacked were repulsed. The communique also claims the capture of more Finnish positions. The Finns, who deny reverses, estimate the Russian losses in this fighting at between 30,000 and 40,000 men and 200 tanks. At the same time the Finns have made a fresh appeal for foreign assistance in man-power and munitions to check Russia's overwhelming man-power. Summa is still the main point of the Russian attacks on the isthmus, and five or six Russian divisions are concentrated there. For the first time the Russians are using 70-ton tanks with three gun-turrets. Undoubtedly, some of the pillboxes on the advanced part of the Mannerheim Line have been damaged by intense artillery fire. It seems that some of these were occupied by the Rus-1 sians, but eventually were recaptured I by counter-attacks launched by the Finns.