November 1939: The Soviet Union, the largest army in the world, invades its tiny, relatively defenseless neighbor Finland, just three months after the declaration of World War II. So began what is known as the Winter War. A small makeshift company of soldiers, workers, and farmers must face off against columns of tanks and millions of Stalin's Red Army fighters. In this propulsive and deeply moving narrative based on the true story of the Finnish infantry division, heroes emerge: the star sniper Simo Häyhä, nicknamed the “White Death”; the young men from farms and villages who meet again on the battlefield to fight for their homes; nurses who must treat old childhood friends. The soldiers go to battle with old guns as their wounds freeze in the unforgiving cold, and yet not only do they resist the Soviet soldiers, but they force the superpower to offer terms for peace only six months later.