FINNS NEED HELP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24205, 25 January 1940, Page 18

FINNS NEED HELP

CHANCE OF VICTORY DEPENDS ON MATERIAL AID (From Oub Own Correspondent) LONDON. Dec. 22. "If Finland can be given supplies of food, clothes, and particularly war material, she will come out on the winning side, but the help must be given at once. If it is delayed it will be too late," said Mr H. McGrady Bell, who was the first British diplomatic representative to Finland after the last war. and who has known Finland and the Finns for 40 years, in a broadcast talk this week. Before he left Helsinki, said Mr Bell, an ordinary man in the street said: "Tell the people of Britain that we do not expect them to fight for us—we know well enough that they have a war of their own—but make no mistake. Our war is their's. It is all part of the. same war of civilisation against barbarism and inhumanity." Mr Bell added that he was rallying his friends, who were trying to procure one aeroplane to give to Finland as a gesture. His intention is to fly it to Finland before Christmas. The Finns, said Mr Bell, did not expect a war with Russia any more than Britain expected a war with Germany in August. He was in Helsinki when the first raid came, and he saw the result of a bomb falling on a technical high school. It looked as if there had been an earthquake. Only the outside walls were left; those inside were completely gutted. "Whatever the odds, the morale of the Finnish soldiers is excellent," said Mr Bell, commenting on a trip he made to the front line. "They are a dour people, and make good friends, but formidable enemies. In the Viborg sector I met a soldier who had been responsible for shooting 57 Russians during one action. I asked him how he bad become such a crack shot. He said that his job was to shoot squirrels for their fur, and in order to secure an unmarked skin it was necessary to have a good aim. "When they are expecting a tank attack, the Finns sometimes dig holes in the ground 'and sit there waiting. Some of them were armed only with shotguns. They waited patiently and coolly until the tanks came close and then fired through the slits. Time and again this set fire to the tank's fuel suopl.y and it blew up. These tactics have partly accounted for the huge number of Russian tanks put out of action." . V,Mr Bell added that the Finns' antiaircraft guns were very good, and that they knew how to use them. But they had not enough of these guns The Russian pilots could not flv at night or in foggv weather, because they had not been taught blind flying. Troops in the line were living in tents although the temperature was manv degrees below zero. The Finns preferred tents, which had a large stove in the middle of each one. and they were really very warm. The Finnish women were marvellous, and at the front, he came across women observers in fur coats perched high in the observation towers waiting and watching for enemy aircraft. They were all members of an ancient society called the Lotta S%rd. which corresponded to the W.T.S. in Britain. Thenwork was entirelv voluntary, and they cooked for the troops, drove lorries, manned observation Dosts. and knitted and sewed for the troops.