The White Death of the Winter War

Picture it, you're sitting in front of the TV playing whatever Call of Duty you grew up with. You're doing well, got a tidy kill-streak going, managed to climb your way to the top of the leader board and you intend to stay there. Then BAM! out of nowhere your kill-streak is ended by someone with far too many "x"s in his name. Frustrated, you struggle frantically to climb your way back to the top, but this legend refuses to let you get near. The round ends with you in the middle of the leader board, defeated. Feels terrible doesn't it? No imagine that feeling, except instead of you playing Call of Duty you're trying to invade Finland and you got your ass handed to you by a farmer. That is exactly what happened to Soviet Russia in the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940, better known as the Winter War.

While I could easily write a seperate blog about the Winter War and the amazing underdog story that it was, I will not spoil it for you. Needless to say, the Finnish faced seemly insummitable odds against the Soviet hordes and yet they emerged victorious. The Winter War is a great example of the sheer will-power of the Eastern European countries had shown against the Soviet regime. And within that great story, is a legend. A man who became a symbol of Finnish patriotism, inspiration and strength. His name was Simo Häyhä, and before joining the army to fight against the Soviets he was a simple farmer.

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Like all Finnish teenagers, he completed his years of national service at age 20, and had built up a reputation as a marksman without equal. His weapon of choice was a Finnish made M/28-30 bolt-action rifle, which is a variant of the Mosin-Nagant Rifle (Don't worry, I do not know what any of this means either). Hours of practice and years of service made him the best marksman in the White Guard, shooting a target sixteen times per minute which is an incredibly impressive feat as the rifle is bolt action and the clip only carried 5 bullets. After his years of service, he returned to the countryside where he enjoyed his life as a farmer, hunter and skiier. But his quiet life ended when the Soviets invaded on the 30th of November 1939 and Simo Häyhä rejoined the army as a sniper.

History nerds will know and appreciate the numerous memes about the Vietnam war, about how the VC would disguise themselves as villagers and go about their daily lives or the most famous tactic of hiding in the jungles and imploying guerilla tactics. The G.Is would often be ambushed because the VCs knew the jungle far too well for the Americans to stand a chance

There will be more memes and a "History's Biggest Fuck-Ups" post about the Vietnam war because I love clowning on the Americans, but I digress. The Finnish employed the same tactic. The Soviet invasion force was twice the size of the Finnish army and they had thousands of tanks and aircraft compared to the tens of tanks and a measly hundred aircraft that the Finnish had. However, they knew their country much better than the Soviets and they used this to their advantage.

Simo Häyhä and the other sniper squads would wear all white so that they could blend in with the snow and wait for the Soviets to blindly stumble along. Simo Häyhä, however, prefered to work alone. So he would pack in a days worth of food and ammunition, find a suitable spot, and lie in the snow and wait for hours on end, in temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius, for the Soviets to turn up. He would build snow piles on either side of him to make him even more camoflauged, as well as to hide the muzzle flash from giving away his position when he fired, and he would chew and keep snow in his mouth to stop his steamy breath from giving away his position. He was also diminutive, standing at just 5ft (152,4 cm) which made him even harder to spot. While either snipers used scoped sights, he used his trusty M/28-30 rifle with iron sights, which he prefered over the scoped sights as they would mist up in the freezing temperatures or the expose the sniper when the sun causes a glare. Barely visible and with superhuman patience, Simo Häyhä became the world's deadliest sniper.

The war lasted 100 days, during which Simo Häyhä killed 505 Russian soldiers with his his M/28-30, as well as another 200 with his sub-machine gun. He quickly became Russia's biggest threat, earning him the nickname "White Death". Russia quickly began deploying counter-sniping squads specifically to deal with Simo Häyhä, but they were all killed. Soon they began calling artillery strikes on areas that they thought he was in. Häyhä's crowning achievement was when he was deployed to assassinate a Russina sniper who had killed three of the Finnish army's platoon leaders. He waited for several hours in a single position, and when the sun began to set he saw the sun's rays reflect off of his target's scoped sight. When the Russian sniper got up to go back to camp, Häyhä pulled the trigger and killed him in one shot.

However, Simo Häyhä's time in combat would not last. In the last eleven days of the war, a Russian infantryman spotted him, and shot him. He was shot in the lower jaw, completey destorying it, knocking out several of his teeth and putting him in a coma. When he woke up, the war was over with a Finnish victory. He was promoted straight to second lieutenant, was given the Medal of Liberty and the Cross of Liberty and was given a new model of his gun to honour his 505 confirmed kills. And after many surgeries to try and repair his face, he made a full recovery and went back to his farm where he lived until he died of natural causes in 2002.

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And that is the story of the White Death, the world's deadliest sniper. You can watch an animated video of his journey here or watch another video about him with more Winter War context here.

Stop trying to invade winter countries.