Word: reds
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Sweden. Russian ships shelled Viipuri and moved out through the Gulf past Helsinki to attack Hangö, "The Baltic Gibraltar." Finland's little fleet, centred around the shallow-draft pocket-battleships Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen moved cautiously to meet them. An attempted landing was repelled at Porvoo. When the Red ships came within range, the fortress at Russarö guarding Hangö opened fire. One Soviet destroyer was reported sunk, one damaged and the new cruiser Kirov so badly punched astern that she had to be towed into Tallinn...
...lieutenant colonel in the Russo-Japanese War, later commanded the 6th Russian Cavalry as Lieutenant General in World War I), he went home in 1917 to command the armies which won Finnish independence (with German help) from the Bolsheviki. After his White Guards had run the Red Guards out of Finland, the Baron shot up 2,000 Bolsheviks left behind, in one of the century's bloodiest terrors...
...draw too much water to go close to shore. Chief disadvantage of the Finns is in the air, whence plenty of hell will rain on them before they win or lose. One young Finnish fighter pilot was credited in the first two days with shooting down single handed six Red bombers. Finland was said to have lost only two planes in the first four days. But even blunderers must prevail when the air odds are 36 to one (the odds of roulette, without any zeros), if only by blasting out the defender's landing fields. In leaflets dumped...
More specific if scarcely more credible was the Soviet radio's description of the start of hostilities. Finnish soldiers, the radio reported, "invaded" the Soviet Union three times on the night of Nov. 29-30. After the third attempt the Red Army lost its patience and at 8 a.m. the war was on (see p. 23). It was notable that the war was 16 hours old before any Soviet newspaper or radio got around to giving communiques...
First Pressure was applied on Sunday, when the Red Army reported an incident-on the border which, the Soviet Union claimed, killed or wounded 13 soldiers. Premier-Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov dispatched a note to Finland immediately demanding that Finnish troops be moved from twelve to 15 miles back of the border. On Monday the Finns formally disavowed the incident, replied with a refusal to move their troops unless the Soviet Union did likewise. After that the Finnish-Soviet timetable was crowded with angry notes, inflammatory speeches, useless diplomatic parleys...