ORDERLY RETREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1940, Page 5

ORDERLY RETREAT

FINNS NOT YET DRIVEN OUT OF VIBORG ATTACKS ELSEWHERE DISPERSED. I OTHER PARTS OF LINE STRENGTHENED. The Russians have not yet occupied Viborg, though the Finns are making an orderly retreat to new lines, Davenlry reports. Il is only around Viborg that the Mannerheim Line has been pierced. At the eastern end the enemy forces have been dispersed and the Russians have not advanced an inch in that area for weeks. The Russians yesterday were continuing their mass attacks on the western end of the Mannerheim Line and claim to be encircling Viborg. A Helsinki message says, however, that the invaders have not yet entered the city itself, though they have secured a footing in the suburbs, and that the Finns are ready to withdraw to their new defences behind Viborg. The Finns are blowing up the ice along the coast of the Bay of Viborg to prevent the Russians from advancing along it to threaten their rear. The Finns say that the loss of Viborg is sentimental rather than strategic. Nevertheless, its defence has been costly. Detachments have hung on as long as possible to enable other parts of the Mannerheim Line to be strengthened and the concrete in the new positions to settle. AIR RAID DEATHS. Tn Moscow the official journal of the Bolshevik Party’s central committee after extolling the prowess of the Red Army in Finland, says: “The Soviet Union is the sole country whose army does not threaten anyone.” A Moscow broadcast has denied that Russian planes have bombed Finnish civilians, but a Helsinki summary of the first three months of air raids throughout Finland puts the deaths through air raids at 563 and those in-, jured at 1200. REARGUARD ACTION MAIN FORCE RETREATS IN GOOD ORDER. NEW LINE THREE MILES FROM VIBORG. LONDON, March 4. A Finnish rearguard was still fighting inside Viborg this morning, with the main forces retreating in good order to the new defence line, the nearest point of which is only three miles behind Viborg. The Reds have not yet made contact with the new line at any point. The Finnish pistol champion, Vartio Vaari, was killed in action on Saturday outside Viborg, shortly after receiving a medal for bravery.