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Wednesday, January 11, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
The greatest warrior of winter
By Jim Cornelius
News Eidtor
As Sisters Country contin-
ues to attempt to shovel out
from under snowstorm after
snowstorm, as temperatures
plunge as low as -26 degrees,
and as the international biath-
lon season gets underway,
thoughts turn to the greatest
warrior ever to strap on a set
of skis and a pick up a rifle:
Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä.
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It was late Fall, 1939.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union had carved up Poland
that September. Although
bound together in a nonag-
gression pact, the two great
totalitarian powers eyed each
other warily. Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin feared invasion
by Nazi Germany — Hitler
had, after all, promised as
much in “Mein Kampf.” The
Red Army needed a buffer
to protect the northern city
of Leningrad — and Stalin
demanded the territory to cre-
ate it from the neighboring
Finland. The Finns refused to
be intimidated; they pledged
neutrality and resistance to
any German invasion, but
refused any territorial conces-
sions. On November 30, 1939,
the Red Army rolled into the
Karelian Isthmus. The Soviet
Union had invaded Finland.
In the South Karelian
village of Rautjärvi, a five-
foot-three-inch, slightly built
34-year-old militiaman, a
hunter, trapper and farmer
of the Karelian forest named
Simo Häyhä, picked up his
Mosin-Nagant M28-30 and
joined his infantry regiment
to defend his homeland.
Häyhä brought significant
skills to the battlefield. He
was an expert rifleman with
the M/28-30 variant, which
was considerably shorter and
handier than the basic Mosin-
Nagant 91 and had excellent
iron sights. Unlike most snip-
ers, Häyhä eschewed optics
and stuck with the old-school
irons — which never fogged
up in the cold or glinted in the
icy northern sunlight to give
away his position.
He was also, like so many
Finnish soldiers, a capable
Nordic skier, which gave
him and his comrades a huge
advantage in mobility against
the road-bound Russians with
their tanks and armored cars.
Häyhä possessed the
fieldcraft and patience of
the born woodsman, and he
was equipped and adapted to
handle the extremes of what
turned out to be an exception-
ally cold winter, even for the
hinterlands of Finalnd.
Häyhä often worked alone,
donning his white snowsuit,
drawing rations rich in pro-
tein and fat, and stalking his
Russian prey to take them out
one by one with well-placed
rifle shots. Just as often, he
would join in lightning ski
raids, cutting up Russian units
with a hail of fire from his
9mm Suomi submachine gun.
Snipers have a psychologi-
cal and moral effect on the
enemy that no other weapon
seems to match. The feeling
that you are being stalked and
selected for death strikes a
primal terror into the hearts
of the stoutest soldier. The
Russians knew who Häyhä
was — they quickly grew to
fear him and gave him a name
suited to their dread: The
White Death.
They went after him with
artillery strikes and counter-
snipers, but Häyhä always
escaped. In one instance, he
out-waited a Russian counter-
sniper, who was armed with a
scoped Mosin-Nagant M91.
The Russian waited for hours
for a shot at The White Death.
As the sun sank through the
woods, he apparently decided
to call it a day. He rose to
one knee — and the last pale
PHOTO PUBLIC DOMAIN
Simo Häyhä turned the heavy snows and cold of Finland to his advantage
in battling Soviet invaders in 1939-40.
Häyhä called home. As one
Russian officer mordantly
quipped, the Red Army won
just enough land to bury their
dead.
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Ironically, the terrible per-
formance of the Red Army
against the determined Finns
may have contributed to
Hitler’s decision to invade
the Soviet Union in 1941,
confident that “the whole rot-
ten edifice” would collapse.
That, of course, proved not to
be the case.
Finnish troops attacked the
Soviet Union and regained
the territory lost in the Winter
War in what would be known
as The Continuation War,
1941-44, where Finland acted
as co-belligerent with — but
not allied with — Germany.
The recovered territory was
lost again when the Soviet
Union prevailed in the Second
World War.
Simo Häyhä did not serve
in the Continuation War.
Rendered homeless by the
Winter War’s ceasefire agree-
ment and treaty, he relocated
to his brother’s farm. He
never married, but roamed
the woods as a trapper and
moose hunter, unhindered by
the injury that had disfigured
him. He apparently exhib-
ited no symptoms of post-
traumatic stress either from
his injury or from being the
instrument of so many deaths.
He regarded his actions in
the Winter War as simple
duty, performed to the best
of his ability, and when the
war was over, he was con-
tent to return to the life of a
woodsman.
Häyhä became a noted
breeder of hunting dogs, and
an enduring hero to his coun-
trymen. He lived a quiet and
modest — and very long —
life. He died at the age of 96,
in 2002.
Occasionally, military
enthusiasts would query him
as to the secret to racking up
hundreds of sniper kills. His
simple reply always came
with a smile: “Practice.”
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on du
light of the setting winter sun
glinted upon his scope. A shot
rang out. The White Death
had struck again.
By the spring of 1940,
Simo Häyhä had amassed
an unbelievable total of con-
firmed kills: 505. He had
probably killed half as many
again in raids with his Suomi.
The Russians — with their
massed frontal assaults and
stand-up tactics — made the
job easier than it should have
been, but the record remains
an almost unbelievable battle-
field accomplishment.
On March 6, 1940,
Häyhä’s luck ran out. He was
engaged, along with a small
cadre of ski troops, in a fire-
fight with a superior force of
Russians when he was hit in
the face by a bullet from a
counter-sniper. This is usu-
ally described as an “explod-
ing bullet,” but it was likely
a bullet sectioned to be fran-
gible on impact. The Finnish
sniper suffered a grievous
wound. The bullet tore off a
portion of his lower left jaw
and knocked him uncon-
scious. He was rescued from
the battlefield and lay in a
coma for days before reviv-
ing. His war was over.
So, too, was Finland’s.
Despite almost miraculous
battlefield success against
enormous odds, the plucky
Finns simply could not pre-
vail against the tremendous
weight of the Red Army.
They were forced to negoti-
ate a ceasefire. They gave
up territory, including the
part of Karelia that Simo
January 17 – February 24
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