Word: viipuri
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Around three sides of Karelia's crumbling capital Russian field artillery stood hub to hub, and under the torrent of shells they threw, the Red Army last week battered its way into Viipuri. Craftily the Finns fought their retreating battle, leaving small rear-guard detachments to hold up the advance while their main force fell back in good order. A ruined town makes the best of all fortifications, and as the Russians entered the outskirts of Viipuri, Finnish machine guns spat tellingly from the gaping windows of the all-but-demolished houses. The invaders had to occupy Viipuri block...
...through the snow on the Karelian Isthmus, no word of it leaked out: Leningrad is the only one of the world's ten largest cities without a foreign correspondent. But one thing was certain: that to celebrate its 22nd anniversary last week the Red Army did not take Viipuri. If Joseph Stalin was disappointed, that was nothing to the chagrin of his best friend, Andrei Zhdanov...
Under the shells and bombs that crashed into Viipuri last week Finnish men and women worked day & night. Brawny peasant women toiled side by side with boys and old men, burrowing trenches, throwing up breastworks, putting together makeshift pillboxes. Beneath the high-pitched scream of shells in air and the sharp thunder of their explosions sounded the dull bass background music of the battle south of the city. Day by day it came nearer...
Into its fourth week went the battle of Viipuri and Finland's second city was now in the battle line. Finnish artillery, wheeled back from the main positions of the Mannerheim Line, spat at the Russians over the heads of Viipuri's defenders. Behind Karelia's beleaguered capital, along the 30-mile stretch of lakes and canals between Lake Saimaa and the Gulf of Finland, other workers were building new defenses. Few people doubted that if Viipuri fell Finland would still fight...
...crash. The worst began on the 13th day of fighting. Supported by heavy artillery and airplanes that bombarded the Finnish lines day and night, the Russians threw fresh troops and tanks against the vital Summa sector, where the villages of Summa and Kamara guarded the road and railroad to Viipuri (see map}. Simultaneously they attacked in the middle of the isthmus, trying to force the defiles between the chain of isthmus lakes and encircle Lake Muolaa. This action, if successful, would flank the defenders of Summa. At the same time the Russians hit both ends of the Mannerheim Line...