THE WHITE DEATH FINNISH MARKSMAN SIMO HÄYHÄ

In the hostile -40˚C conditions of the Finnish winter of 1939-40, a man clad all in white lay with packed snow mounded in front of him and awaited his enemy. The man was Simo Häyhä and he was armed with only a regulation bolt-action rifle – he preferred the standard sight as it couldn’t fog over or catch the light, and was less conspicuous than a telescopic sight. Next to him lay his sub-machine gun and he was no less deadly with that weapon. During the Winter War, Häyhä alone would account for the deaths of almost an entire battalion of Russian soldiers.

Simo Häyhä was born in December 1905 in Kiiskinen, a village in the Rautjärvi municipality in southern Finland, very close to the border with Russia. (His birthplace fell within the borders of the Soviet Union from the conclusion of the Winter War in 1940 and it remains within Russia’s borders.) Raised as a farmer, a hunter and a shooter, Häyhä also enjoyed skiing and he would use all of these skills to great effect during the Winter War against the invading Soviets.

Tensions between Finland and Soviet Russia had been on the rise since the Russian Revolution in 1917.