SOVIET SECRECY OVER NAVAL BASE WORKS AT PORKKALA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22697, 23 July 1948, Page 3

SOVIET SECRECY OVER NAVAL BASE WORKS AT PORKKALA

(From Reuter’s Correspondent)

STOCKHOLM (By Air Mail).

Reports reaching - here from the neighbourhood of Porkkala suggest that the Russians are constructing - a big - naval base on this peninsula, leased to them under the Finnish peace treaty. Porkkala Peninsula juts forward into the Gulf of Finland west of Helsinki. From it and from the naval base of Tallinn, on the opposite side of the gulf, the Russians can dominate the entrance to the gulf and protect the approaches to the huge naval base of Kronstadt, outside Leningrad.

fast motor boats patrolling the boundaries of the forbidden area. They are Almost every day brings with it reports of lost boats in these waters. The Russians have a whole fleet of arated from a group of 43 smacks in bad weather and have not been heard of since. The following day, two sailing yachts disappeared in the same area. The Russian-occupied area is hermitically sealed off from the neighbouring Finnish states. No one is allowed to enter it, and little is known of what is actually going on behind Porkkala’? well-guarded borders. It is evident that the Russians are building—and building on a large scale. Fishermen living in the neighbourhood report that the sound of big explosions is heard every day from Porkkala. "They have been blasting away for three years now,” one fisherman said. "They must be blasting pretty deep holes.” Fishermen complain that the explosions break their window panes and scare the fish from the coastal areas. Tight Security Measures

painted black and have machine guns mounted on the foredeck. The people living on the coast call them "pirates". ( Russian Suspicion Grows Russian suspicion is reported to have grown recently, as the construction work at Porkkala progresses. The crews of intercepted ships after being brought into Porkkala are questioned. This process often lasts as long as a month —after which they are released without any explanation, either of their detention or of their release. Treatment meted out to them at Porkkala varies. Some are held in closely-guarded cellars, while others live in relative comfort in villas, which before the Russian occupation, were used for summer holidays by people from Helsinki, What those detained complain most about is that they are not allowed to contact their next of kin, who are thus left in doubt about whether they have perished at sea or are safe oa. iaad.

The tight Russian security measures also apply to trains on the main line between Helsinki, the capital, and the port of Turku, on the Gulf of Bothnia. Part of this line passes through the Russian-occupied Porkkala area, and on this stretch the trains run with iron shutters closed over the windows and all doors locked.

Last winter, the Russians suspended all shipping in the waters round Porkkala. Since then, the area has been a trap to small craft sailing along the coast —big ships usually do not go so close to the shore:'

Fourteen fishing smacks were recently reported to have been lost on their way from Helsinki to Hango on the other side of Porkkala. .They were sep-