1940-01-13 — Page 9

RAIDS

Conclusions Drawn By American Journalist

ADVANTAGES OF THE RUSSIANS

(From LELAND STOWE)

DURING THE PAST few day I witnessed several air raid alarms at Helsinki and was able to draw interesting conclusions.

The first air raid on Helsinki in seventeen days was at- tempted by Russian planes on December 19th. The sirens sounded at 11.25 a.m. and the Finnish anti-aircraft bat- teries started firing almost simultaneously. No Red bomb- ers were visible over the centre of the capital and as far as can yet be learned, no bombs fell in the city itself.

It is reported that four Red pursuit planes approach- ed the naval and coastal defences on the city's outskirts. Apparently they were driven off with great dispatch, for the firing lasted only a few minutes. This was one of the clearest days Helsinki has had for weeks and a beautiful sunrise gave warning that an air raid might be expected.

When the alarm sounded hundreds of people in the streets ran helter- skelter for the air-raid refuges and the doorways, At that moment I was dictating my dispatch to Am- sterdam but the communications were cut off before I could more than state that an air raid was on. The Finnish police kept the pedestrians off the streets with great severity. They refused to honour war corres- pondents' credentials and one police- man prevented Warren Irvin, the National Broadcasting Company's re- presentatve, from leaving his hotel and going to the radio station three blocks away. The all-clear signal was sounded at 12.15.

ON THE ALERT

Close on

the heels of the Red bomber's raids on three of Finland's four largest cities the air sirens shrilled again at 10 o'clock in the morning of December 20th, but the "all-clear" was sounded fifteen minu- tes later without any anti-aircraft guns being heard here. Nevertheless another day of partial sunshine with a lightly clouded sky is keeping the Finnish air defence forces very much on the alert.

DEFINITION

Blitzkrieg.-Sudden and terri- fying German attack which never strikes at the same place once.

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The Raiders apparently mistook large open field for an airport and unloaded most of their explosives where a crow was the only casualty. The bombs used varied from fifty and a hundred-pound sizes to several very powerful ones, which must have weighed about 600 pounds, but damage was done.

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FINNISH DIFFICULTY--

For the Finns the chief difficul- ty of these air raida lies in the fact that Vilpuri and Helsinki are directly on the Gulf of Fin- land, and the Russian bombers- which have less than a twenty- minute flight to and from their bases in Estonia can come in from a high altitude with their motors throttled, consequently the enemy raiders can be almost over these coastal cities bafore the It is now three weeks since Soviet

alarm is sounded, and the popula.... Russia started the war against .little

tions have less than five minutes Finland, and for three weeks the

warning in which to seek shelter. Bolshevist invaders have been fought

If the weather should permit the to a standstill. Smarting under their failure to win a single impressive

Reds to raid regularly, they will be victory, the Communist leaders are able to disrupt civilian life consider- throwing in nearly 100,000 men. Fourably, though this will probably only infuriate the Finns and strengthen Red Army Corps are attacking sava- gely on

fronts and the their already fixed determination to fiercest fighting, with unprecedented fight to the end. artillery bombardments, has occurred since Monday in the Karelian Isthmus. There, the Seventh Red Army Corps ugain failed to crash the centre of the Mannerheim Line near Lake Muolau.

as many

SYNCHRONISATION

PLANES HELD UP

I learned here from Finnish sour- ces that the German Government, ap- parently under the pressure of Mos- cow, held up all but two of a ship- ment of 25 very modern and fast Fiat pursuit planes, which were bought Now, however, the Russian strategy | from Italy before the war began. seems to be to synchronise heavy in- These planes are capable of a speed fantry attacks with a series of air of 350 miles per hour, and would be raids along the Finnish coasts. Three an immense aid to the Finns in fight- important cities-Vilpuri, Helsinki ing off the Red Invaders at the pre- and Aabo-were all raided on. De sent time. By the original agreement cember 19th, together with Provoo and Berlin consented to let the ItalianN: 22 Hango. Three raids were reported on | ship the Flats | across » Germany to Aabo, where two houses were fired Sweden, where they would be..com by incendiary bombs, and one person.signed to an Italian agent. injured. The officials say that nearly Ten Hats were believed.. 20 Red air-planes, all flying very been, shipped from Germany -high, attacked in the vicinity of Hel- but when the crates were

sinki on December 18th and dropped at Stockholm, eight of the 32 bombs within six miles of the city empty, the remaining 15 limita

not left Germany.

Cary Grant and Jean Arthur are interrupted by an angry Rita Columbia's "Only Angele Hayworth in this dramatic scene from Have Wings,” now current at the King's Theatre. · Grant and Miss Arthur are co-starred in the film, a spectacular Howard Hawks pro- duction of aviation adventure and romance In South America,

MADEMOISELLE WAS SO STRAIT-LACED

London January. 2.

"The real Mademoiselle from Arm- entieres was very strait-laced and stood no nonsense from the troops.

"All she did was to serve us fellows in the A.S.C. with beer from behind the bar, and we could not even steal a kiss,"

The man who said this yesterday should know, for he is Mr. Reginald Rowland, who wrote the original song. He is now manager of a Sutton, Sur- rey, cinema.

Mr. Rowland said he was a sergeant, aged 27, when he wrote the world- famous song during a rest period in billets behind the line in Flanders in 1915.

LOOK

AT

THIS

VALUE

FOR

" 'Mademoiselle' was not at all the sort of girl some of the lurid parodied versions invented by the troops later made her out to be." he added.

"I wrote the ditty round a story the troops were telling at the time of how a Canadian colonel got his face slapp- ed for trying to take a liberty.

The girl was Marie Lecoq, a wait- ress at the Cafe de la Paix, Rue de la Gare.

"Now she is Madame Marceaux, a grandmother, aged 49, and still lives in Armentieres. She married after the war the young French soldier to whom she was already engaged in August 1914."

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