The Soviet soldiers never saw him. Their artillery failed to kill him. Entire units refused to advance because of his skills. Simo Häyhä killed more enemy combatants than any sniper in recorded military history, and he did it without the telescopic sights that other marksmen considered essential.
Over 500 confirmed kills. Less than 100 days of combat. Temperatures that plunged to 40 degrees below zero. The 34-year-old Finnish farmer accomplished what no sniper before or since has matched, using methods so effective that the Red Army launched artillery barrages on entire forest sections just hoping to eliminate him.
When the Soviet Union invaded Finland on Nov. 30, 1939, Simo Häyhä was living quietly on his family farm near the Russian border. He stood just five feet three inches tall. He was the seventh of eight children in a farming family. He'd completed his mandatory military service in 1925, joined the Finnish Civil Guard as a reservist, and spent his free time hunting and competing in marksmanship contests. His home was reportedly filled with shooting trophies.
The invasion changed everything. Stalin sent over 500,000 troops across the border. Finland mobilized roughly 300,000 soldiers. Häyhä grabbed his Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle, a variant of the Mosin-Nagant, and reported to the 6th Company of Infantry Regiment 34.
The Battle of Kollaa
The Finnish command assigned Häyhä's unit to defend a position along the Kollaa River in southeastern Finland. The waterway itself offered little protection, but ridges up to 33 feet high provided key defensive terrain. The Soviets threw a massive force at the position. At one point, the Finns guarding the sector faced 12 divisions, roughly 160,000 soldiers. In some sectors, as few as 32 Finnish troops held off more than 4,000 Soviet attackers.
Häyhä served under Lt. Aarne Juutilainen, an officer who had earned the nickname "The Terror of Morocco" during his years in the French Foreign Legion.
When Major General Woldemar Hägglund asked "Will Kollaa hold?" Juutilainen gave an answer that became legendary among Finnish troops, "Kollaa will hold, unless the orders are to run."
The position held against overwhelming Soviet numbers. Häyhä became a major reason for the success.
He operated primarily alone, moving between positions with complete freedom to engage targets as he saw fit. The dense forests and brutal winter became his advantages. The extreme winter of 1939-1940 was one of the coldest in decades, with snow sometimes deeper than his height.
Soviet troops advanced in standard brown uniforms that stood out against the white landscape. They moved in predictable formations. They lacked proper winter gear. Many spoke different languages and struggled to coordinate with other units.
Stalin's purges in the late 1930s had devastated the Red Army's officer corps, eliminating three of five marshals and 220 of 264 division-level commanders. The remaining leadership made tactical blunders that Finnish defenders exploited ruthlessly.
Häyhä dressed entirely in white. He arrived at his chosen position before dawn and stayed until after sunset. He kept bread and sugar in his pockets, eating the calories he needed to maintain body heat during hours of motionless waiting. His slight frame made him easier to conceal.
As the Soviet infantry moved forward through the snowy forests, the Finnish sniper dropped them, usually at a rate of five per day, sometimes by the dozen. Häyhä would relocate, only to ambush Soviet reinforcements sent to find him. The Soviets were terrified of the elusive Finnish sniper.
Techniques That Kept Him Alive
The decision to use iron sights rather than a telescopic scope was deliberate. Scopes required the shooter to raise his head higher, creating a larger profile. The glass could fog in extreme cold, obscuring the target at critical moments. Sunlight reflecting off the lens could reveal a sniper's position to enemy observers. Häyhä understood these vulnerabilities and rejected the use of scopes.
Instead, he relied on skills developed through years of hunting. He could estimate distances up to 150 meters with remarkable accuracy. Most of his kills came at ranges between 100 and 150 meters, distances where the dense Finnish forest allowed clear shots without exposing him to longer-range return fire.
Before each day's mission, Häyhä built his position with meticulous care. He packed dense mounds of snow in front of his rifle. The barrier concealed his location, provided a stable platform, and absorbed the muzzle blast that would otherwise kick up clouds of snow. He kept snow in his mouth to cool his breath. In the frigid air, exhaled moisture created visible condensation that could expose his hidden position.
He memorized the terrain around each location. Tree trunks, depressions, shadows, the shapes of snowdrifts. If anything changed when he returned, it signaled enemy activity. He never climbed trees. Other snipers sought elevation for better fields of fire. Häyhä recognized that height meant exposure and limited escape chances.
When Soviet forces intensified their search for the sniper, he adapted. He used sounds from artillery bombardments to mask his movements between positions. He exploited smoke from fires and explosions for cover. He studied his enemies' patterns and anticipated their routes.
No matter what the Soviets did, they continued losing men to Finnish sniper fire.
The Soviets grew desperate. They sent their own snipers to hunt him, they never returned. They launched artillery at suspected positions, firing thousands of rounds at forest sections where they thought he might be hiding. They placed a bounty on his head.
Soviet troops allegedly began calling him "Belaya Smert," the White Death. Though many assert this was Finnish propaganda.
Regardless, his actions were a huge morale boost for the small Finnish nation. The Soviet war effort waned as its troops were too terrified to poke their heads up above cover.
December of 1939
On Dec. 21, 1939, Häyhä achieved his highest single-day count, 25 confirmed kills. The figure seems nearly impossible, but in many ways, the Soviets gave him the opportunity to amass such a large kill-count. Soviet forces attacked in waves along predictable routes. They massed at chokepoints. They advanced across open ground where Finnish defensive positions could observe their approach.
Häyhä had more targets than he could engage at times.
His division commander later reported that Häyhä had killed 219 Soviet soldiers with his rifle and an equal number with his Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun when close-range combat required it. A military chaplain kept a diary that recorded 259 sniper kills by early March. Other sources suggested the number could exceed 500.
Häyhä's own war memoir, written in 1940 and discovered only in 2017, estimated around 500 enemy soldiers killed. He called it his "sin list."
The exact count remains debated. What isn't debatable is that no sniper in any war has matched his body count, achieved in such a short timeframe, under such extreme conditions.
Finnish propaganda celebrated him as "The Magic Sniper." His fellow soldiers were amazed at his efforts. The psychological impact on Soviet forces was significant. Entire units became paralyzed with fear, knowing that any movement could draw fire from an invisible enemy.
But Häyhä himself remained modest about his role.
"The Russians did not give us peace, even during Christmas," he recalled years later, "but God was close to us, we sang psalms."
On Feb. 17, 1940, Finnish headquarters pulled Häyhä from the front for a ceremony. A Swedish businessman had donated a custom rifle in his honor. Officers presented him with the SAKO M/28-30 bearing his nameplate. He slept in a real bed that night for the first time in months. He ate hot Finnish food and drank imported wine.
The respite lasted one night. He returned to Kollaa the next day.
Wounded in Combat
An explosive bullet fired by a Soviet soldier struck Häyhä in the lower left jaw. The impact tore away half his face. Soldiers who found him reported that "half his face was missing." They loaded him onto a sled and rushed him to a field hospital.
Doctors managed to stabilize him, but they made no promises about his survival. Häyhä slipped into a coma. He remained unconscious for seven days. When he finally woke up on March 13, 1940, Finland and the Soviet Union had signed the Moscow Peace Treaty. The Winter War was over.
Though technically a Soviet victory which saw Finland cede land to the USSR, the Finns had stunned the world, blunted the largest army on Earth, and maintained their national sovereignty. The embarrassing failures of the Soviet troops was a huge motivating factor for the Germans deciding to invade the USSR the following summer.
Häyhä spent 14 months in hospitals recovering from his wounds. He underwent 26 surgeries. His face remained permanently disfigured. The injury ended any possibility of returning to combat in 1941 during the Continuation War, when the Finns joined the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Finnish government promoted him from corporal directly to second lieutenant, an unprecedented jump in rank. He received the First and Second Class Medals of Liberty and the Third and Fourth Class Crosses of Liberty. The latter two awards were normally reserved for commissioned officers.
After the War
Häyhä returned to the only life he'd known before the fighting. The Moscow Peace Treaty had ceded his family's land to the Soviet Union. He relocated to Ruokolahti, a small municipality in southeastern Finland, and started over as a farmer. He bred dogs and hunted moose. He avoided publicity and rarely discussed his wartime service.
His friend Kalevi Ikonen later said of him, "Simo spoke more with animals in the forest than with other people."
When asked in 1998 how he had become such an effective sniper, his answer was "Practice."
In December 2001, shortly before his 96th birthday, a newspaper reporter convinced the elderly veteran to discuss his experiences. The journalist asked if he felt remorse for killing so many people.
"I did what I was told, as well as I could," Häyhä replied. "There would be no Finland unless everyone had done the same."
Häyhä died on April 1, 2002, at age 96, in a war veterans' nursing home. He was buried in Ruokolahti.
The Kollaa and Simo Häyhä Museum in Rautjärvi preserves his legacy today. His rifle, serial number 60974, is held in Finnish military collections. In 2004, a Finnish television poll ranked him 74th among the 100 greatest Finns of all time.
More than 500 confirmed kills, less than 100 days of combat, with a rifle without a scope. A simple farmer who answered his nation's call against the largest army on Earth became the deadliest sniper in military history.
