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Fire and Ice: The Winter War of Finland and Russia
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We
used a Tyler camera mount for helicopter shots of Helsinki and
Southern Finland's majestic landscapes. |
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| In the Summa sector of the former Mannerheim Line, now
Russian Karelia, we stage reenactments of Finnish and Russian
soldiers in the period just prior to the beginning of the Winter
War. |
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In
September and October, Field Marshal Mannerheim mobilized the
Finnish Army on so called "extraordinary maneuvers." This is
what probably saved Finland from being immediately overrun by
the Soviet offensive that began on November 30, 1939. |
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| Some portions of the Mannerheim Line had to be built practically
from scratch, and so soldiers went to work felling trees, digging
trenches, and building bunkers. |
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The Finnish army was impossibly small compared to the Soviet
Union's war-machine. With a total population of only four million,
there was a limit to how many reserves Finland's Army could call
up. The Soviet Union, with a population of 183 million, had a
standing army of more than 2 million soldiers, with many millions
more in reserve. |
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