Launching a massive assault force, the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland on November 30, 1939. The Soviets deployed nearly half a million men and an arsenal of historic proportions in an offensive campaign that would define the eventual course of World War II and forever shape the art of modern warfare. Fire and Ice retraces the historic battles of the Winter War, one of the bloodiest and most arduous conflicts in history; it has become history's prime example of the force of a large nation attempting to conquer a smaller army, only to be rebuffed by devastating weather and unfamiliar territory. Through archival film footage, eyewitness accounts, interviews with historians, diary entries, and battlefield re-enactments, this program recounts the extraordinary events surrounding 105 days of intense and brutal combat during one of the coldest winters in recorded history.

Friday, 7/18/08 from 4:30-5:30 a.m. ET