Simo Häyhä
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Simo Häyhä was a Finnish sniper who became famous for his extraordinary effectiveness during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939–1940. He is historically significant as one of the deadliest snipers in recorded military history, demonstrating the outsized impact a single skilled marksman could have in modern warfare.
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Simo Häyhä (17 December 1905 – 1 April 2002), often referred to by his nickname The White Death, was a Finnish military sniper during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in World War II. He used a Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle (a variant of the Mosin–Nagant) and a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. Häyhä is believed to have killed more than 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. Consequently, he is generally regarded as the deadliest sniper in history.
Häyhä estimated in his private war memoir that he shot around 500 Soviet soldiers. Written in 1940, a few months after he was wounded, his Sotamuistoja (lit. 'War Memories') recounts his experiences before and during the Winter War, from 13 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. Hidden for decades, the memoir was discovered in 2017.