Fire Hose

When the Russians first tried to walk into Finland, across the Karelian Isthmus and around the shores of Lake Laatokka, the Finns described the troops they slaughtered as cannon fodder. When Russia's thrusts across Finland's narrow waist bogged down, then turned into the rout of Suomussalmi, the Finns contemptuously pointed out that the drives had been haphazardly planned, poorly supplied. But when, last fortnight, Russia began pounding away on all fronts, there was every indication that this mightiest offensive of the war had been carefully planned, was well supplied, and employed seasoned Red Army troops.

Far behind the lines, in central Finland, Russian planes dropped men by parachute. These men were Karelians and Finnish Communists who had fled to Russia after the Communist Party was outlawed in 1930. Last week they were back to plague the country, spying out the Army's movements, cutting communications, trying to spread dissatisfaction among the Finns, who sometimes mistook them for loyal brethren. Police rounded up many of these spies, warned the populace to beware of them, but how many were still at large at week's end no one knew.

With the spies came the bombs, sprayed by wave after wave of Soviet planes. In the clear cold air they flew high, trailing a thin line of vapor from their exhausts, dropping clusters of small bombs that burst into flames when they hit. Systematically the Russians went after every centre of communications: railways, telegraph and telephone centres, roadheads, bridges, factories. (They got a ski factory and the Finns were short of skis.) This meant that civilians had to bear the brunt of the bombings. Typical of the destruction wrought was the case of Sortavala, vital railway junction on the north shore of Laatokka. Correspondent James Aldridge left it, "majestic in the moonlight." one midnight. The next night he returned, "saw a bloody glow in the sky and realized the city was in flames.

"A few miles out, sparks were flying over the road. People carrying bundles were walking along with children, some with pushcarts, fleeing. Houses on the edge of town were burning fiercely. There was fire everywhere one looked, for Sortavala was a wooden city. . . . All day the city had been subjected to a continuous aerial bombardment by waves of Russian planes, dropping mostly incendiary bombs. . . . This place of 17,000 persons* could not now house a thousand."

And with the bombings came the firehose attacks, stubborn onslaughts that were wasteful of men and materials alike. From Petsamo in the far north (where the Russians tried and failed to push on to Hoyhenjarvi) down through the Salla and Suomussalmi sectors (where the Finns stopped them before they got going) and the new front at Kuhmo (where the Finns beat them back with heavy losses) to the shores of Lake Laatokka and the Karelian Isthmus, the Russians attacked simultaneously. The Finns were in their tightest spot since the war began.

Day after day Russian tanks and foot soldiers stormed the fortified Mannerheim Line on the isthmus. Night after night Russian artillery poured shells into the Finns' positions. On the ninth day a Leningrad communique jubilantly announced that the Russians had taken eight forts on the isthmus, five more north of the lake in synchronized attacks, four days later they claimed 16 more had fallen. Rumors spread abroad that the Mannerheim Line had cracked, but the Finns knew better. No solid line, but a series of fortified positions, is that famed Finnish barrier (TIME, Dec. 11, et seq.), and the forts the Finns had yielded were pillboxes. Nonetheless, so long as the Russians could spare the men and materials to keep coming on, they could not help wearing the Finns down. Men who could not sleep in the din of nightlong artillery bombardments must eventually grow weaker, and the Finns could not afford to relieve them.

So fierce grew the fighting at Summa, astride the Leningrad-Viipuri Railway, that the Finns ran out of ammunition, had to meet the Russians with bayonets and knives. The Russians came in tanks, by sledge, crouching behind steel shields, and they came in wave after wave. Bravely the Russians fought and died, killing many Finns. The Finns could not afford their losses, but in Russia man power is cheap.

By week's end the Russians had widened their offensive, attacking not only at Summa on the western side of the isthmus, but also in the centre and on the east, along the Taipale River, which weeks ago they tried and failed to cross (TIME, Dec. 25). The Finns held on. Then the Russians, apparently assuming that the Finns had weakened their forces north of the lake to strengthen their defense of the isthmus, launched a new drive northeast of Sortavala. The Finns, not so easily tricked, were ready for them. They cut up a column of 60 trucks and two tanks, captured several machine-gun nests, killed 800 men.

Although they had plenty of men to spare, the Russians could not bring up material fast enough to sustain the strength of their offensives.* Deadly accurate Finnish artillery fire silenced their batteries almost as fast as they could replace them. There was a slackening of the nerve-wracking bombardments that had gone on for so many nights. And, most revealing of all, one day the Russian bombers dropped artillery shells instead of bombs on the Finnish lines. Russia's age-old weakness was revealed again: trouble with supply lines. Somewhere, between hydrant and nozzle, the fire hose had sprung a leak.

* Correspondent Aldridge is wrong. The population of Sortavala never exceeded 5,000.

* The Finns officially listed their booty in ten weeks of war: 327 airplanes, 634 tanks, 294 machine guns, 206 other guns, 1,560 horses, 552 motor cars and lorries, eight ships, one submarine.

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