Simo Häyhä's 505 Confirmed Kills

Simo Häyhä's 505 Confirmed Kills: The White Death

The temperature had dropped to -40°C in the Finnish forests near the Kollaa River. The white snow reflected the pale winter light, and the treetops stood stiff with frost. For the invading Soviet soldiers, this was already hell – but it was nothing compared to the terror spread among them by a single Finnish farmer.

Simo Häyhä lay completely still under a thin layer of snow. His homemade white camouflage suit made him nearly invisible in the winter landscape. In his mouth, he had packed snow – not to quench his thirst, but to prevent his breath from forming revealing vapor in the ice-cold air.

He had been lying in the same position for over five hours, waiting for the right moment. Soviet soldiers moved through the forest in front of him, unaware that their every step could be their last.

Häyhä used a standard Mosin-Nagant M28/30 infantry rifle. No telescopic sight – it could reflect light and reveal his position, and besides, the lens could fog up in the extreme cold. He relied on his open sights and his own incredible ability to judge distance, wind conditions, and other factors that affected the bullet's trajectory.

A Soviet officer stepped forward from a cluster of trees, about 300 meters from Häyhä's position. Häyhä focused, adjusted his aim slightly for the wind that barely touched the treetops, and slowly drew in his breath. He held his breath, and between two heartbeats, he gently pressed the trigger.

The Soviet officer fell immediately. Panic spread among the other soldiers, who sought cover but could not see where the shot had come from. Häyhä waited patiently, motionless. Thirty-five minutes later, another soldier exposed himself, and Häyhä fired again – another precisely deadly shot.

This was not an unusual day for Simo Häyhä during the Winter War (1939-1940). In just 100 days, in the midst of an Arctic winter with only a few hours of daylight, Häyhä killed a confirmed number of 505 Soviet soldiers with his rifle and approximately 200 more with his machine gun – an average of five enemy kills per day.

Soviet soldiers called him "Belaya Smert" – The White Death. They sent their own snipers to eliminate him, bombed areas where they thought he operated, and even attempted artillery bombardments specifically aimed at this one man. Nothing worked.

On March 6, 1940, near the end of the war, Häyhä was finally hit in the jaw by an explosive bullet from a Soviet soldier. He fell into a coma and only woke up on March 13 – the same day the peace agreement between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed.

When a journalist later asked Häyhä how he had become so good at shooting, he simply answered: "Practice."

The small farmer from Rautjärvi, who had never sought fame or attention, had carried out the most effective sniping campaign in known military history – and had done it with open sights, in extreme winter conditions, against a numerically superior enemy.