Simo Hayha Biography

Simo "Simuna" Häyhä (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈsimo̞ ˈhæy̯ɦæ]; 17 December 1905 – 1 April 2002), nicknamed "White Death" (Russian: Белая смерть, Belaja smert; Finnish: valkoinen kuolema; Swedish: den vita döden) by the Red Army, was a Finnish sniper. Using a Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle (a variant of the Mosin–Nagant rifle) and a Suomi KP/-31, he reportedly killed 505 to 542 men during the 1939–40 Winter War, the highest recorded number of sniper kills in any major war. Häyhä estimated in his diary he killed more than five hundred Red Army soldiers in the Winter War (by both sniper rifle and machine/submachine gun) Antti Rantama (Häyhä's unit military chaplain), credited 259 confirmed sniper kills and an equal number of kills by machine/submachine gun were made by Simo Häyhä during the Winter War.