TIME EXPIRED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 68, 18 September 1944, Page 5

TIME EXPIRED

GERMANS IN FINLAND

LONDON, September 16. The Finnish police have begun rounding up German military personnel in south Finland in accordance with the Russian-Finnish agreement that the Finns would take , action against the Germans if the .latter had1 not departed by Friday, says ReuterS Stockholm correspondent. LONDON, September 17. A Finnish communique states that the Germans are burning down villages in northern Finland. The Swedish Government is affording sanctuary to the population (numbering 24,000) of Rovaniemi, which is an important German supply base 60 miles north of the head of the Gulf of i Bothnia, and which is expected to b« held at all costs. DISTANCES AND TIME. "The enemy who made this demand (for the removal of Germans from Finland) and the Finnish High Command which acceDted it knew "that the demand could not be fulfilled," sqys an annoiincement issued from Hitler's headquarters, quoted by the German news agency.. "The German army in Finland will therefore, from Friday, continue to conduct all movements and measures solely from the viewpoint ofr protecting its own security against all attackers. "When Finland on Septembers surprisingly demanded the withdrawal of German troops from Finland by September 15. the German divisions^ which had hitherto defended central Finland wore almost 250 miles from the Gulf of Bothnia, and more than 375 miles from the northern FinnishNorwesian frontier. A march to the Gulf, of Bothnia requires 20 days and to the Norwegian frontier at least 30 to 35 days." " , The Finns have liquidated the German bridgehead on Hogland Islandj according to an official announcement from Helsinki, and took 700 Germans prisoner, including about 200 wounded.