{UAH} Simo Häyhä, the Finnish sniper

There have been many great snipers in history and who can take the title of the greatest is a topic of debate. However, if you are going purely on skill level, accuracy, and the overall kill record, there is no sniper in history as deadly as the man who was nicknamed "The White Death".

Yes, we are talking about none other than Simo Häyhä, the Finnish sniper, generally regarded as one of the greatest war heroes of our time.He got his nickname from the Red Army, the very people he was fighting against, which just goes to show what a phenomenal sniper he must have been. Simo Häyhä was a Finnish marksman of the highest order, and his weapon of choice was the Finnish M/28-30 rifle, which he used in the Winter War (1939).

He has been credited with a mindboggling 505 reported kills, which is actually the highest number of confirmed sniper kills in the history for any major war. He was absolutely deadly with a rifle in his hand and is widely known to be the most successful and skilled sniper that the world has ever seen.

Häyhä was born in the municipality of Rautjärvi right on the Russian border. He grew up in a very large family of farmers being one of 8 brothers and sisters. As most people in such areas of Finland Häyhä took up the hobby of skiing and hunting, both more out of necessity rather than passion. The young Häyhä would soon discover his proficiency with the rifle after many months spent hunting in the Finnish tundra which led his parents into entering him in a shooting competition.

Häyhä fought for Finland against the Soviet Union in what history refers to as the 'Winter War', the conflict that occurred in the winter of 1939–40. The Winter War broke out when he was 33 years old and on 17 December 1939, he celebrated his 34th birthday on the Kollaa battlefield. He served a total of 98 days with 6th Battalion, Infantry Regiment 34.
During his 98-day reign of terror, Häyhä was unseen and unheard, yet was all the while targeting Russian soldiers with deadly accuracy, once even killing 25 men in one day. With snipers presenting such a high-value targets on the battlefield, Simo's reputation as a marksman soon reached the Russian front lines; they referred to him as "The White Death".

He would then hide in the snow, and remain hidden for long periods of time in temperatures ranging from -20 degrees to -40 degrees! He would then kill any Soviets who made the mistake of entering the zone where he was camping. To make himself harder to detect he only used iron sights on his rifle, instead of the scopes. This was because scopes sometimes flashed if they were caught in the glare of the sun, which would reveal his position to the enemy.

His deadly accuracy as a sniper was definitely not ordinary since he hardly missed a single shot. He knew how to preserve his ammunition and in less than 100 days, Häyhä managed to kill over 500 enemy soldiers!
His track record as a sniper can be ascertained by the fact that the Soviets gave nicknamed him "The White Death." They were so afraid of Häyhä that they decided to send in their own counter snipers along with artillery attacks to kill him, but without success.
However, on 6th March 1940, when the Soviets were randomly directing artillery fire at the area where they thought Simo Häyhä was camping, they managed to get a lucky shot with an explosive round, which hit Häyhä in the jaw. The impact of the hit knocked Häyhä unconscious, and he fell into a coma for eleven days, waking up on the day the war ended.

The injury hardly slowed Simo Häyhä down. Though it did take several years to come back from being hit in the jaw with explosive ammunition, he eventually made a full recovery and lived to the ripe old age of 96.

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"War is nothing but a  continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." 

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