FREEING OF NORWAY

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 20, 18 October 1944, Page 7

FREEING OF NORWAY

Anglo-Russian Operation Oiit The Cards LONDON. October 16. “And now for Norway”—that is how a Moscow correspondent sums up the effect of the Red Army’s seizure of .the Petsamo region. The United Press says that General. Maretzkov is pushing across north Finland beyond Petsamo toward the Norwegian border, and there is already a strong possibility that joint combined operations in Norway are imminent. The correspondent points out that Mr. Churchill's staff in Moscow, includes experts on combined operations, and adds that the occupation of Petsamo aud the adjoining fiords, is expected to result in the rapid deterioration of German air and naval strength north of Norway. The Allied sea supply lane to Murmansk, on which the British, Russian and American Merchant Marine have suffered some of the heaviest convoy losses of the war, is now relatively safe. Reuter’s correspondent states that Russia lias agreed with the Allies to pursue the Germans into Norway. The Red Army is pouring through the gap in the remnants of the German forces on the 1941 Arctic line. Berlin radio’s commentator, Major von Hammer, said that the greater part of the German forces in the' Petsamo area had withdrawn to the NorwegianFinnish border. Strong Russian forces were pressing against the Arctic road. The British Foreign Office and War Office announce today that Mr. Shepherd has been appointed, the British political representative in Finland. Anthoni, the former chief of the Finnish State police, who fled to Sweden a fortnight ago following tlio RussoFinnish armistice, has, according to the Stockholm correspondent of' the Assoicated Press, been ordered to leave on technical grounds.