NORTHERN THEATRE: Such Nastiness

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One column reached Nurmes, cutting the railroad that runs diagonally across Finland from Tornio on the Swedish frontier to south Karelia and the isthmus. Farther north, another column took Suomussalmi and turned southward toward lisalmi, a rail junction in the centre of Finland. Still farther north, a third column bore down on the roadhead of Kuusamo. Most daring of all, the fourth division crossed the low mountains to Kuolajärvi and thence sped westward past Kemijärvi toward Rovaniemi, which lies on Finland's highway to the Arctic. From Rovaniemi this column might strike southward to Kemi and Tornio, thereby commanding not only the Arctic highway but Finland's rail supply line from Sweden.

In the farthest north the fate of Petsamo was still in doubt while, to the west, one Russian column pushed southward for an enveloping attack.

These thrusts were as dangerous as they were daring. Although Finland might be cut in half laterally and Petsamo crippled as a supply base, the Finns in the south could still get supplies from Sweden by way of the Gulf of Bothnia. Meanwhile the Russian columns were in peril of being cut off from their own bases. The Blitzkrieg was becoming a war of supply lines.

In the Air the Russians' overwhelming superiority was slowly being balanced. Italy sent 80 Savoia-Marchettis to Finland and Britain sent 30 Bristol Blenheims. If the sub-zero temperatures and the shortage of daylight did not cripple their effectiveness, the Finns had a good target in Russia's two main supply lines, the Leningrad-Murmansk Railway and the Baltic-White Sea Canal. Aggressive and continuous air attack on the rail line would leave Russia's raiding columns marooned in the wastes of north Finland. By week's end the Finns had taken to the air and were reported to have bombed the railway.

The Finns used some of their limited supply of planes to bomb the Russian base at Baltiski, Estonia. This was not pure cockiness, as it seemed, because the Russians are short on seaplanes and need land bases from which to operate. If these bases could be destroyed, Helsinki and other Finnish cities would be spared many terrors.

At Sea the war was quiet. Finland announced that she was fortifying the Aland Islands and had mined their approaches. There was no protest from Sweden, which alone might object to the proximity of big guns to Stockholm. Russia announced her blockade of the Gulf of Finland, and Finland said it was illegal. There were some sporadic exchanges between Finnish coastal batteries and Russian warships in the Gulf (the Russians shelled Hanko without much effect), and Finland suspected Russia of planning to land troops before the Gulf begins to freeze around Christmas.