military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (12/23/89)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Tuesday, 26 December, 1939 A further Soviet attack on the Mannerheim line fails, leaving 700 dead on frozen Lake Suvanto. The line, garrisoned by six Finnish divisions, is opposed by 13 rifle divisions and 5 tank brigades. The Pope sends a "substantial" fund to aid Finnish Catholics, and the Vatican expresses hopes that this will rally Catholics worldwide to Finland's aid. Hitler is reported to have spent Christmas eve on French soil, in a captured pillbox on the Spichern Heights near Saarbruecken. He distributed Christmas packages among the troops, and personally promoted the captain who captured the pillbox to major. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@cbnews.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "... all of the great air fleets have experimented with various degrees of success with launching torpedoes fromn the plane. As yet, no such use of the plane has been reported in this war." - Maj. Gen. Stephen Fuqua, U.S.A. Retired