Sisu

The Finns have something they call sisu. It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate sisu as "the Finnish spirit," but it is a much more gutful word than that.

Last week the Finns gave the world a good example of sisu by carrying the war into Russian territory on one front while on another they withstood merciless attacks by a reinforced Russian Army. In the wilderness that forms most of the Russo-Finnish frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Ocean, the Finns definitely gained the upper hand.

Near Lake Kianta the Russians threw their entire 163rd Division into battle, trying again to break through Finland's waist. In a bitter two-day battle the Finns "cut to pieces" the 163rd, pursued its remnants into the forests and toward the frontier.

Not only had the Finns ended, for the time being at least, Russia's threat to cut their country in two, but small bands of them were pushing toward the Leningrad-Murminsk railway in several places, making real their own threat to cut Russia's supply lines to the north.

By week's end these white-clad raiders had not yet reached the railroad. But Finnish fliers managed to bomb it a couple of times, and there were reports of a food shortage in Murmansk.

What war is like in the wastes of north-central Finland was ably described by Correspondent James Aldridge of the North American Newspaper Alliance, who spent two days with a Finnish advance post somewhere between Kemijarvi and Salla. Wrote he:

"The front here is ... a vast area of forests filled with Finnish and Russian patrols who are continually meeting and dueling in the bitterest weather conditions of any war ever fought. . . . The soldiers' daily routine is one or two hours of patrol, then back to the headquarters hut where they sleep in a big room for two or three hours, then out again for an hour or two and back for four. This goes on continuously, the men never getting out of their clothes, except to take a Finnish steam-bath every couple of days, when they must undress in the snow. . . .

"Daylight lasts two hours, in which time the sun paints everything blood red and puts a red curtain over the sky which is very beautiful. . . . When the sun creeps up at noon the fighting begins. . . .

"Sometime during the night Russians pushed up a patrol of 800 men ... to a hill 400 metres from my hut and the Finns' main supply road. Here the Russians set up machine-gun nests in a commanding position to attack. . . . One hundred Finns sneaked up on the Russian position and opened fire before the Russians knew they were there. . . . While these 100 Finns kept the Russians occupied from the front, 100 more made a flanking movement uphill on both sides of the Russians and the circle of Finns poured hell into the enemy. ... It was a half-hour slaughter, with unceasing machine-gun, rifle and grenade fire. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began. ... In ten minutes all the Finns had filtered back with their wounded, saying that most of the Russians had been killed but a couple of hundred had managed to escape."

Other points in Correspondent Aldridge's report:

> Few wounded survive the war in northern Finland, because "lying for 15 minutes in this cold, even if a man is only slightly wounded, means he will be frozen stiff."

> Red Army patrols are well equipped with two automatic rifles, two telescopic-sighted rifles, one machine gun and five hand grenades for every ten men. Said the Finnish Commander: "So far the best equipment and ammunition we have got from any foreign power is from Russia, and we generously give it back, but in a different way."

Big Push. Last week Joseph Stalin adopted a new method in his month-old effort to conquer the Finns. Up to the Mannerheim Line he moved more and heavier artillery, including some "Little Berthas" and fresh troops from Siberia and the Caucasus, trained for bitter-weather fighting. To launch his new offensive he sent 38-year-old General Gregory Stern, who until recently was commander of Soviet forces in the Far East, gave the Japanese a good trouncing at Changkufeng. (His grocer brother Morris, unearthed in a Los Angeles suburb last week, said: "I don't like it. Finland is a democratic country. Why don't they leave her alone?")

All week the Russian artillery pounded against the Finns' positions. For several miles behind the Finnish lines the frozen earth was ploughed by the Russian guns. The bombardment was so nerve-breaking that even the tough-nerved Finnish soldiers could stand it for only a week at a time before being relieved.

Under cover of artillery fire the Russians attacked in waves. Six times the Finns threw them back, with losses of 3,000 in two days, according to the Finns. But the Finns themselves lost heavily, and another 100,000 of Dictator Stalin's best troops were reported astride the Leningrad-Viipuri railway, massed for a frontal attack on Viipuri. It began to look as though the Finns could not hold on much longer. But still the Finns held on.

Though help was going to Finland, it was not going fast enough. Two detachments of Swedish "volunteers" arrived under 71 -year-old General Ernst Linder, but Italy was reported to be delaying effective help because of German objections. Desperately the Helsinki Government cabled its military attache in Washington, Colonel Per Zilliacus, to buy planes and send them quickly. Colonel Zilliacus was having a hard time, for most U. S. plants were clogged with French and British orders. And the Finns' greatest need, artillery and small arms, was even harder to buy in a warring world. A good example of the Finns' plight and of sisu was contained in a letter from a soldier to his sis ter, which Correspondent Leland Stowe cabled to the Chicago Daily News. Excerpts :

"Yesterday, in the hand-to-hand fight, I was separated from my men and surrounded by the Bolsheviks. Three of them, armed with automatic pistols, started hunting me. I killed two of them and the third ran away. Thank heaven for that! ... By that time my old pistol, which wasn't very good as you know, was so hot that it broke to pieces. ... I need a big Mauser revolver, caliber 9. If you are unable to get this size, and if you can find a Nagan revolver or a big Colt pistol, send this with at least 100 cartridges. ... It is now, as you know, that your brother's life is depending on his knife."

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