Simo Häyhä aka “The White Death” is widely regarded as the most
hardcore sniper there ever was, with over 500 kills to his name. He
helped defend his homeland from the Soviets during World War II. Here
is his story.






Depending on the record, Simo Häyhä was born in either 1905 or 1906
in the farming town of Rautajärvi. Once the Soviet Union was formed and
Finland had gained its independence, the town in which he lived found
itself to be only a very short distance from the Russian border. His
childhood was filled with plenty of hard work on the farm, which coupled
with the Finnish wilderness made him a very tough – yet patient – man. A
few years later in 1925, Häyhä served a mandatory one-year service in
Finland’s army. While one year may not be a long time, he obviously made
the best of it: by the time he was honorably discharged, he had been
promoted to the rank of corporal.



Later on, Häyhä joined the Finnish Civil Guard, a military
organization comparable to the National Guard in the United States.
During his time with the Civil Guard, he received a great deal of
training, which included target shooting. Shooting was always an
interest for Häyhä, and any spare time he had was spent outdoors
shooting at whatever targets he could find. His first rifle was a
Russian-built Mosin-Nagant bolt action M91, and was later introduced to
the better-performing M28/30 and the 9mm Suomi submachine gun. Thanks to
both his training and natural enjoyment of shooting, Häyhä was
eventually able to hit a target 16 times per minute at about 500 feet
away, making him an excellent sniper—a skill that would later serve him
very well.


In
1939, the Soviet Union attempted to invade Finland. Being a member of
the Civil Guard, Häyhä was called into service, serving under the 6th
Company of JR 34 on the Kollaa River. Commanded by Major General Uiluo
Tuompo, the Finns faced both the 9th and 14th Soviet Armies, and at one
point were fighting against as many as 12 divisions— about 160,000
soldiers. Also at one point in the same area, there only 32 Finns
fighting against over 4,000 Soviets!
Despite being outnumbered, however, the Finns were still victorious
at the end of the day. The invading Soviets weren’t as organized as one
would expect: they spoke many different languages, and they weren’t used
to the harsh Finnish winters either. In fact, the winter of 1939-40 was
very snowy, and had temperatures ranging from -40 to -20 degrees
Celsius.
The Finns were also smart in their tactics, the most notable of which
were known as “Motti”-tactics. Since the Soviets would invade by the
roads, the Finns would hide out in the surrounding wilderness. They
would then let the invaders cross the border, and attack them from
behind!


Hayha’s involvement in the Winter War was very extraordinary. With
his Mosin-Nagant M91 rifle, he would dress in white winter camouflage,
and carry with him only a day’s worth of supplies and ammunition. While
hiding out in the snow, he would then take out any Russian who entered
his killing zone. Häyhä used a Finnish militia variant of the Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifle, the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Guard_%28Finland%29 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosin-Nagant#Finland (literally en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitz,
due to the front sight's resemblance to the head of a spitz-type dog)
chambered in 7.62x54R, the Finnish Mosin-Nagant cartridge, because it
suited his small frame (1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)). He preferred to use en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_sight rather than en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_sight
to present a smaller target for the enemy (a sniper must raise his head
higher when using a telescopic sight), to increase accuracy (a
telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily in cold weather), and to aid
in concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a
sniper's position). As well as these tactics, he was also known to keep
snow in his mouth whilst sniping, to reduce steamy breaths giving away
his position in the cold air. While he may sound like an ordinary sniper, this was far from the case: over the course of 100 days during the winter he racked
up over 500 kills, earning him the nickname “The White Death”. The
Soviets feared him so much that they mounted numerous counter sniper and
artillery attacks to get rid of him, all of which failed miserably.
However, on March 6th, 1940, he was hit in the jaw by an explosive round
from a counter sniper. He fell into an 11-day coma, awakening on the
day that the war ended.



Hayha was given numerous awards, and was also promoted from corporal
to second lieutenant, a jump in the ranks that had never been seen in
Finland’s history. Despite being slightly disfigured, he recovered from
his injury, and went on to live until the age of 97. He allegedly
attributed his deadly sniping skills to “practice”.
Despite gaining around 22,000 square miles of Finish soil, the
Soviets lost the Winter War, with 1,000,000 of their original 1,500,000
troops having been killed by the defending Finns. A Russian general
later remarked that the land they had conquered was “just enough to bury
their dead”.

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