White Death: the Sniper Who Killed 700 Soviets in 100 Days

Originally posted by spacebot
Very informative thread!
I never knew this stuff!

I did a search on Google for WWII and Finland and it find only for a Soviet invasion of Finland. Nazis never invaded them?

[edit on 15-4-2010 by spacebot]

No, germans were our allies and we'd be speaking russian if it weren't for them. However when the cease fire was signed between Soviet Union and Finland one of the rules was that all german troops have to be out of Finland by a deadline which they didn't manage. Therefore our forces had to fight them out. Which results in an interesting trivia piece: Finland was in war with Soviet Union, Britain, US and Germany and we're still here!

The German/Finnish War is known as the Lapland War and it took place in 1944 in northern Finland. There was also the 2nd Finnish/Soviet War called the Continuation War between 1941 and 1944.

There is a movie about the Winter War, a 1989 Finnish made movie called Talvisota/The Winter War.
www.imdb.com...
You can buy it on Amazon.com with English subtitles but it's a bit pricey at $40
www.amazon.com...
Ive seen parts of it on YouTube and it looks pretty good.

[edit on 15-4-2010 by ChrisF231]

Very good post man, its kinda inspiring to me. +1

Wow, this guy was a freaking 1 man army. That is a quality marksman right here.

To all the people who think this guy was just a cold blooded murderer:

Wtf? If your home is invaded, and there is an enemy that is raping a pillaging your countrymen, you do something about it. This guy just happened to do that +600.

reply to post by EvolvedMinistry


You see, you failed to see the larger picture.

Like I said in my first post, nobody is glorifying death and "free" violence and killing.

The lesson you should take out from this, is that a single Man, with the right reasons, can change his country, or his world.

It's this kind of person who makes you stand up on your feet, fight for your rights, not as a male or female, not as a citizen of A or Z, but as a Human.

People think that only violence is feed into soldiers mind. To some extent, that is true.

But in the army, later when I was already in sniper school, one of the most valuable lessons that was taught to me, is that violence is not a bad thing. What can be bad is your intentions.

Why? Because violence is just a way to act, a movement on your part, while the reasons why you do it, change the outcome.

Violence is not injury. Violence is intensity.

Gandhi used violence, tremendous violence. But at the same time, he didn't move his muscles. How does that work? He used moral violence. He showed to the people he was facing, that they couldn't hurt him, that his values and his independence was far more powerful than any bullet or punch that they could throw at him.

So, how can a pacifist use violence? Because people have limited understanding of true moral actions.

Peace is not standing still and not doing anything. Peace is when you act under the philosophy of not hurting anyone for the wrong reasons.

You have a bad tooth. You must have pain and violence before you are healthy. I know this is a ridiculous example, but it's just an analogy.

Yes, he killed, and yes, he did kill a lot.

But what he showed was that the price for killing his brothers, sisters, sons and parents, was way higher than the price that the Soviets would be willing to pay. He showed them they could not win over love, respect, honor and pride. They wouldn't take their homes.

He used violence for a greater good. That's what people are glorifying.

[edit on 15/4/10 by Tifozi]

Originally posted by DaMod
Wow, this guy was a freaking 1 man army. That is a quality marksman right here.

To all the people who think this guy was just a cold blooded murderer:

Wtf? If your home is invaded, and there is an enemy that is raping a pillaging your countrymen, you do something about it. This guy just happened to do that +600.

I agree! I say BFD if he killed 600+

Essentially what he did in the long term is save the lives of 6,000+

Especially when snipers target officers....we could be talking about saving the lives of 60,000+

Yeah, definitely a damn good sniper. If a gorde of guys were scrambling through a place that I know, I'd have picked off a feW...but this guy took off a whole battalion. waow. we're luckily he's not Iraqi.

If you enjoyed this story then i'd also recommend Enemy At The Gate... An amazing story and film! And 1 that isnt over after an hour either, i think its on for a good 3 hours!

Oh, I forgot to add : if you want to read a couple of badass bios, I suggest you visit

www.badassoftheweek.com

The writer has a certain talent.

My favorite badass soldier is Jack Churchill..

Jack Churchill

Who Was He?

An allied commander in WWII, and an avid fan of surfing, Captain Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill aka "Fighting Jack Churchill" aka "Mad Jack" was basically the craziest mother**** in the whole damn war.

He volunteered for commando duty, not actually knowing what it entailed, but knowing that it sounded dangerous, and therefore fun. He is best known for saying that "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed" and, in following with this, for carrying a sword into battle. In WWII. And not one of those sissy ceremonial things the Marines have. No, Jack carried a f***** claymore. And he used it, too. He is credited with capturing a total of 42 Germans and a mortar squad in the middle of the night, using only his sword.


Churchill and his team were tasked with capturing a German fortification creatively called "Point 622." Churchill took the lead, charging ahead of the group into the dark through the barbed wire and mines, pitching grenades as he went. Although his unit did their best to catch up, all but six of them were lost to silly things like death. Of those six, half were wounded and all any of them had left were pistols. Then a mortar shell swung in and killed/mortally wounded everyone who wasn't Jack Churchill.

When the Germans found him, he was playing "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his bagpipes. Oh, we didn't mention that? He carried them right next to his big f****** sword.

After being sent to a concentration camp, he got bored and left. Just walked out. They caught him again, and sent him to a new camp. So he left again. After walking 150 miles with only a rusty can of onions for food, he was picked up by the Americans and sent back to Britain, where he demanded to be sent back into the field, only to find out (with great disappointment) the war had ended while he was on his way there. As he later said to his friends, "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!"

www.cracked.com...

Once in a blue moon, God reaches down from his lofty perch, points at an infant boy and proclaims, "This one shall have balls carved out of f-king granite."

The great part of the mans efforts is that how much effort was placed to take him out. A guy with a bolt action rifle can be deadly as a sniper. Even more so then soldiers w/current hardware. Range and accuracy are better than lots of bullets!

WWII heroes and war stories... as real as Clint Eastwood in wild west movies (also mostly European lol). Every country in EU has WWII national heroes who killed "scores" of Germans, Russians, Brits, whatnot, a one man army, or "just" good generals. Germans of course have most of them, as if every German soldier is a invincible superman.

As for this Fin dude, I dunno, can't tell. But killing 500 soldiers without a scope sounds pretty heavy to me... on clear days too?

Oh and as for moral grounds. To achieve a streak like that, you'd either have to be DRUNK all the time or a psycho. You can't shoot "good" like that otherwise, psychosis does a great job at reducing your awareness and aiming. But what good is me telling you he was a psycho when you're probably psychotic yourself .

I'm sorry for being cynical, but kinda skeptical about WWII history, let alone stories .

Awesome story.

Imagine how many of these stories have been lost undocumented.

AFAIK, in the beginning of the war one of the reasons for ussr's high casualty rates was, that they used some age old "tactics" and guidelines that mandated their troops to storm the enemy positions through open space, head up high yelling "Uraaa!".
It took them some time, to get rid of those old rules and settings..

This was also mentioned in the '89 Winter-war movie.

Discussion topics and follow-up responses in this forum will likely tend to lean in favor of conspiracies, scandals, and cover-ups

Just sayin...

Interesting thread!

If you like Zaitsevs story i highly recommend reading his book, notes of a sniper. Amazing read. Quite how much is soviet propaganda i don't know, but still a brilliant book.

reply to post by boondock-saint


Funny, when reading the OP, the first thing I thought about was "Enemy At the Gates." I think its only a matter of time before this story is made into a movie. My gf is a writer, maybe I'll see if she can assist me with a screen play....

I loved "Enemy @ T G's", but the only draw back is they used that pretty boy Jude Law as the main character. Nothing like watching a guy who is playing a Russian, but has a british accent, and has probably never handled a gun in real life, take down guys a mile away with a mosin nagant

However, it did make me run out to Big 5 and buy a Mosin. Everyone should have one, the best $60 Ive ever spent, plus its a little piece of history.

I read about this guy a few years ago.

Two words: Bad Ass.

reply to post by Tautau


I have read that book and it was crazy.

Another good one is the story of the US marine sniper, Carlos Hathcock.

IMO the best most recent sniper.

Look him up online and watch his videos, its insane some of the stuff he pulled off.

Thank you Carlos