MORE ICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 7

MORE ICE.

FREEZING EUROPE. Temperatures Drop To Record Low Levels. BRITISH SOLDIERS SUFFER. United Press Association.—Copyright. LONDON, January 17. Further freezing weather has gripped Europe. In Estonia, in the coldest winter since 1866, the temperature is 82 degrees below freezing point, 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Bitter winds sent Moscow's temperatures down to 76 degrees below freezing, and caused the closing of all schools. Denmark records temperatures of 50 degrees below freezing, resulting in a number of deaths, immobilising shipping in the harbours, and causing a shortage of coal.

The River Danube is frozen from bank to bank. On the part which flows through Hungary, 1200 ships are held up. About 1000 of these are tanlters and grain ships, which were destined for Germany. The hold-up is adding to Germany's difficulties. For military reasons there can be no Britain's weather. It is so cold on the Western Front that British soldiers manning outposts within rifle range of the German lines are robbed of sleep. Their only shelters are shallow dug-outs and log huts. Fires "are forbidden, as the smoke would guide enemy patrols and attract artillery fire. Physical exercises such as the stamping of feet are not permitted, because the impact of a heavy boot on the frozen earth echoes like a shot. Dress discipline in the forward areas has been relaxed, and the men wear scarves and Balaclavas and use sandbags filled with straw as foot-warmers. Sentries at night must pull back their Balaclavas and strain their ears in the bitter wind, and so suffer from the cold acutely. Men in advance posts are relieved after short periods and sent back to the base towns to rest. The static nature of the war has produced a number of personalities on either side of No Man's Land. One of these is "(Jeorge," a (mmiiihii sniper, who carries his tea to the breastwork evcrv morning and does exercises 900 yards from the nearest British outpost. Efforts to snipe him have failed?