OPERATIONS IN FINLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 9

OPERATIONS IN FINLAND

FURTHER AIR RAIDS

FIFTH SUCCESSIVE DAY

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received January 18, 12.50 p.m.) HELSINKI, January 17. . The extremely cold weather has virtually brought to a standstill military operations and paralysed naval i operations. A Russian communique reports scouting activities in the Murmansk and Gregoriev regions, clashes between infantry units at Petrozavodsk, and minor artillery fire on the Karelian Isthmus. It is stated that Russian patrols repulsed an enemy attempt to launch reconnoitring operations on a wide front and that the enemy suffered great losses. Soviet aircraft mad,e reconnaissances and bombed railway junctions which were military objectives. The Russians yesterday bombed southern areas for the fifth successive day. Civilians stood for hours in A.R.P. cellars in the coldest weather experienced in 10 years. Russian airmen mercilessly demolished the Ekenas Hospital and set fire to houses at Hanko and Turku. They blew 30 people to pieces when a bomb landed in a crowded shelter-1 trench. , A Finnish communique states that i 70 to 80 Russian planes bombarded interior towns. The Finns bombed enemy troops. >. The Estonian population of the Rus-sian-occupied port of Baltiski has been evacuated. The Estonian Minister in Moscow has lodged a protest concerning the Russian capture of the Estonian ship Vega. A Russian submarine sank the steamer Kassari (396 tons) and several Estonian" fishing boats. Many members of the crews were drowned and machine-gunned.