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> Few wounded survive the war in northern Finland, because "lying for 15 minutes in this cold, even if a man is only slightly wounded, means he will be frozen stiff."
> Red Army patrols are well equipped with two automatic rifles, two telescopic-sighted rifles, one machine gun and five hand grenades for every ten men. Said the Finnish Commander: "So far the best equipment and ammunition we have got from any foreign power is from Russia, and we generously give it back, but in a different way."
Big Push. Last week Joseph Stalin adopted a new method in his month-old effort to conquer the Finns. Up to the Mannerheim Line he moved more and heavier artillery, including some "Little Berthas" and fresh troops from Siberia and the Caucasus, trained for bitter-weather fighting. To launch his new offensive he sent 38-year-old General Gregory Stern, who until recently was commander of Soviet forces in the Far East, gave the Japanese a good trouncing at Changkufeng. (His grocer brother Morris, unearthed in a Los Angeles suburb last week, said: "I don't like it. Finland is a democratic country. Why don't they leave her alone?")
All week the Russian artillery pounded against the Finns' positions. For several miles behind the Finnish lines the frozen earth was ploughed by the Russian guns. The bombardment was so nerve-breaking that even the tough-nerved Finnish soldiers could stand it for only a week at a time before being relieved.
Under cover of artillery fire the Russians attacked in waves. Six times the Finns threw them back, with losses of 3,000 in two days, according to the Finns. But the Finns themselves lost heavily, and another 100,000 of Dictator Stalin's best troops were reported astride the Leningrad-Viipuri railway, massed for a frontal attack on Viipuri. It began to look as though the Finns could not hold on much longer. But still the Finns held on.
Though help was going to Finland, it was not going fast enough. Two detachments of Swedish "volunteers" arrived under 71 -year-old General Ernst Linder, but Italy was reported to be delaying effective help because of German objections. Desperately the Helsinki Government cabled its military attaché in Washington, Colonel Per Zilliacus, to buy planes and send them quickly. Colonel Zilliacus was having a hard time, for most U. S. plants were clogged with French and British orders. And the Finns' greatest need, artillery and small arms, was even harder to buy in a warring world. A good example of the Finns' plight and of sisu was contained in a letter from a soldier to his sis ter, which Correspondent Leland Stowe cabled to the Chicago Daily News. Excerpts :
"Yesterday, in the hand-to-hand fight, I was separated from my men and surrounded by the Bolsheviks. Three of them, armed with automatic pistols, started hunting me. I killed two of them and the third ran away. Thank heaven for that! ... By that time my old pistol, which wasn't very good as you know, was so hot that it broke to pieces. ... I need a big Mauser revolver, caliber 9. If you are unable to get this size, and if you can find a Nagan revolver or a big Colt pistol, send this with at least 100 cartridges. ... It is now, as you know, that your brother's life is depending on his knife."