36-to-1

To the nations, dominions, empires actively engaged in World War II, last week came two additions. Russia, Germany's silent and equivocal partner, having made a jackal's feast off conquered Poland, and having taken advantage of the western conflict to subject the three smaller Baltic countries, ran into armed resistance when she tried the same move on Finland (see p. 26).

By Russian accounts the long night of Nov. 29-30 was a lively one along the Russo-Finnish border west and north of Lake Laatokka. At 2 a. m., at 3:15 a. m., again at 4 a. m., Finnish soldiers "invaded" Russia (according to Moscow). To punish this "aggression," the Red Army, signaled by green rockets, started rolling at 8 a. m.

Unlike their occupation of Poland, where they marched in upon the rear of an already demoralized foe, this attack was upon a well-prepared, straight-shooting, determined people facing front. It was at least 2,000,000 trained men and 5,000 airplanes against 200,000 trained men and 150 airplanes, but the tough-fibred Finns provided a test for the Red war machine which the rest of the world watched intently. From the outset it was apparent that the Reds could not match the Nazis at Blitzkrieg.

First came the droves of bombing planes over all main Finnish cities. Apparently most came from Russia's new bases in Estonia (see map). They showed ability in reaching their objectives on schedule in formation through low, overcast clouds, but their bombing aim was wretched. At Helsinki, the capital, they aimed at the big central railroad station, freight yards, post office, and at the west harbor (navy yard, transatlantic piers), but mostly hit apartment houses blocks away, shattered the windows of their own legation. Aiming at the city's water supply, they hit the new Olympic Stadium. They killed scores of women & children, put out the city's lights, pocked the airport and factory section, wrecked the new Technical Institute, but in two days of bombing did not succeed in impairing communications. Thermit incendiary bombs* set the west end of Helsinki ablaze. Other prime targets were the ports of Viipuri, Kotka, Hangoe, Turku and Vaasa, the big power plant at Imatra, gas mask factory at Lahti. After unloading their bombs, the planes swooped to machine-gun their objectives. Finnish anti-aircraft guns and fighting planes shot down a dozen or more Red attackers, whose pilots expressed surprise. They had been told it was safe to bomb anywhere in Finland. One of the pilots taken was an 18-year-old girl. Three fliers who fell into the hands of a mob of Finnish women & children were soon killed with axes, pitchforks, shotguns.

The new coalition Government formed under Risto Ryti met in a vault under the National Bank, of which he is president, prepared to withdraw to Vaasa on the west coast when Helsinki became unlivable. The U. S. Legation withdrew to Grankulla, down the Gulf coast to the west. Departing householders were asked to water their homes inside and out before leaving, to form ice insulation against incendiary bombs.

By land, the Russian attack was launched at four places. In the northern corridor the objective was Finland's ice-free port of Petsamo. Heavy snow prevented the use of artillery here and Finnish counter-attacks recaptured Petsamo after its seizure. Russian prisoners taken were found to be ill-equipped for zero weather; many had frozen feet. Noncombatant Finns fled into Norway in busses camouflaged with bedsheets, were strafed from the air by Red fliers. Some 800 Finnish troops, equipped with skis, stood off the attack of several thousand Russians, but had orders to retire into Norway when Red reinforcements arrived.

They sank all ships bigger than a rowboat in Petsamo harbor, burned villages, slaughtered livestock, rather than let the Russians have them. Reported in flames were the Canadian-owned mining properties at Nickel City.

Fiercest ground fighting was at Suojaervi, northern end of Finland's upper defense line in Viipuri Province (formerly Karelia). Here the Russians evidently advanced in close formation for the Finns told of shooting down two entire companies (800 men) with "machine pistols," a Chicago-type sawed-off machine gun, reputedly capable of 250 rounds per minute. A Finnish soldier, speaking over the radio, said: "I don't believe the Russians are used to us seal shooters. Compared to a seal's head in the water, they [Russians] are almost too big a target. You hardly know where to aim."

On the Karelian Isthmus just north of Leningrad, a Russian artillery barrage and tank attack preceded the infantry advance. Unlike the Poles,*the Finns were ready with anti-tank guns and heavier field artillery. They claimed to have smashed up 54 juggernauts in five days as they fell back on their fortified Mannerheim Line. At Terijoki, seat of the new Red puppet Finnish "Government" (see p. 26), they left land mines which they claimed blew up thousands of Russians.

Estimates were lacking on the number of men Russia was ready to hurl against the Mannerheim Line and the other three points of resistance, but the first few days' fighting sounded more like regiments than divisions, a series of holding attacks to fix the defenders in positions, set them up for more crushing blows. The Finns said 40,000 of their men were standing off 80,000 Russians. Except at the Mannerheim Line, which the Salmi and Suojaervi attacks were evidently calculated to outflank, Finnish tactics were guerrilla retreat, using forests and lakes (not yet frozen solid) for cover and obstacles.

Dispatches did not mention any special snow equipment, such as motored sledges, on the Russian side. But the Reds did employ their famed parachute troops. At Petsamo, this technique apparently worked well at first. Later the parachutists were surrounded where they landed and shot up. On the isthmus, Finnish sharpshooters picked off all the first few men who floated down and the Reds quickly abandoned this tactic.

The Red Navy, operating out of Russian and Estonian bases, first seized the four small, unfortified islands--Hogland, Seiskari, Tytaer, Lavas--which had figured in Russia's pre-war demands on Finland. Farther west, to protect the vital Aland

Islands by which Russia could bottle up the Bothnian Sea, Finland revealed that it had laid mines--illegally, but without eliciting complaint from the only legally interested party, Sweden. Russian ships shelled Viipuri and moved out through the Gulf past Helsinki to attack Hangoe, "The Baltic Gibraltar." Finland's little fleet, centred around the shallow-draft pocket-battleships Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen moved cautiously to meet them. An attempted landing was repelled at Porvoo. When the Red ships came within range, the fortress at Russaroe guarding Hangoe opened fire. One Soviet destroyer was reported sunk, one damaged and the new cruiser Kirov so badly punched astern that she had to be towed into Tallinn.

After two days of air-bombing, a heavy snowfall grounded all planes. The blizzard also impeded evacuation of foreigners from Helsinki and other cities. Most foreigners sought to cross the Bothnian Sea to Sweden.

When the Russians accused Finland of using chloropicrin (vomiting) gas, Premier Ryti sagely warned his countrymen to ready their gasmasks.

How long could the Finns hold out? Would anyone go to their assistance? Answer to the last of these uppermost questions seemed to be: No one. Sweden and Norway, though next in line if the Russian march was really a march to the North Sea, evinced great sympathy, mobilized men on their eastern borders, but were accounted unlikely to fight. Answer to the first question seemed to reside in the iron-hard souls and bodies of the Finns. Their Commander in Chief, Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, struck their battle note as follows:

"Brave Finland soldiers, I undertake this task at an hour when our hereditary enemy once again attacks our country.

"Confidence in its chief is the first condition of success. You know me and I know you, and I know the whole country is ready to fulfill its duty unto death."

Well and truly do Finns know their tall (6 ft. 2 in.) Baron Mannerheim. Two years ago they threw a tremendous party in Helsinki to honor his 70th birthday. He is verily their George Washington. After serving in the Russian Army for nearly 30 years (he was a lieutenant colonel in the Russo-Japanese War, later commanded the 6th Russian Cavalry as Lieutenant General in World War I), he went home in 1917 to command the armies which won Finnish independence (with German help) from the Bolsheviki. After his White Guards had run the Red Guards out of Finland, the Baron shot up 2,000 Bolsheviks left behind, in one of the century's bloodiest terrors.

Retired from active service, he still headed the national defense council which built a defense-in-depth system across the Karelian Isthmus. Fashionable, popular way for Finns to spend their vacation the past two years was to go dig on the Mannerheim Line. This stretches 55 miles across the lowlands and, besides pillboxes and blockhouses, it contains a maze of tank traps and barriers. The fields and fir forests here are studded with granite boulders, which the Finns arranged in serried ranks, buried deeply with their jagged points sticking six feet in air.

Having seen clearly what was coming, the Finns have stored surprising amounts of ammunition. From Sweden they got guns, not too many but very good ones, especially the first class Bofors anti-aircrafts. Their little fleet could do with support from Sweden's crack one, being mostly submarines, gunboats, motor torpedo boats, but Russia's clumsy battleships draw too much water to go close to shore. Chief disadvantage of the Finns is in the air, whence plenty of hell will rain on them before they win or lose. One young Finnish fighter pilot was credited in the first two days with shooting down single handed six Red bombers. Finland was said to have lost only two planes in the first four days. But even blunderers must prevail when the air odds are 36 to one (the odds of roulette, without any zeros), if only by blasting out the defender's landing fields. In leaflets dumped on Helsinki, the Russians threatened mass bombing with 800 planes if the Finns did not capitulate at once. Should that come and the Mannerheim Line be broken, the Finns must retire to their forests and fight for life like the Indians of North America.

*Powdered aluminum and iron oxide, generating 4,000DEG Fahrenheit.

*Reviewing the Polish Campaign in the current U. S. Infantry Journal, Lieut. Col. Hasso von Wedel of the German General Staff gave the total number of anti-tank guns captured with the Polish Army as 120. In any well-equipped modern army, each division has at least 70 antitank guns.

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