Word: viipuri
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...anticipation of growing Finnish strength, Russia let loose a terrific attack.Soviet bombing planes in mass formation unloaded their bombs over seaports and rail centres, killed an estimated 150 civilians in three days, and reportedly bombed Viipuri's ancient cathedral. At the same time the Soviet Army tried to storm the Mannerheim Line by a direct frontal attack...
...Lake Laatokka lies the busy sawmill town of Sortavala, strategically as important a town as there is in all of Finland. Sortavala is the junction of two railroads, one leading north to Finland's waist, which the Russians have been trying to cut, the other going southwest to Viipuri and the Mannerheim Line, which the Russians have been trying to storm. Through this town pass Finnish troops withdrawn from one front to reinforce the other. If Russia had Sortavala, the mobility of the Finnish Army would be dangerously curtailed and Russia would have a railroad on which to drive...
Starting on Christmas Eve, Finland's gulf seaport of Viipuri, ten miles behind the Mannerheim Line, was treated to a demonstration more melodramatic than lethal: long-range shelling by a battery of Russian "Little Berthas" about 25 miles away. Duds proved the guns to be 8-inchers, firing presumably at a main railroad supply line to the Mannerheim positions, but hitting the city and its suburbs indiscriminately. One shell knocked a top corner off evacuated Viipuri's one hotel, the Knut Posse*, in which numerous foreign correspondents were huddled...
...indicating four to six guns) at intervals of ten minutes to half an hour. At first they blew craters three feet deep in the frozen ground. Later, the craters increased to six feet deep, 18 feet across, as heavier explosive charges were used. Their military effect was nil and Viipuri's small remaining population soon got over the psychological effect...
...Knut Posse was a 15th-Century warrior of the pro-Sweden party. In 1495 he became master of Viipuri Castle, whence he led a historic battle against the Russians. In 1500, Russians slew...