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

great post, amazing story!.. without a scoped rifle, this guys must 've had eagle vision, i wonder what the distance was..A true master in stealth...

This is a prime example of why i love ATS. The stories can bee _anything_, and still they are the stories that matter. Its like a collection of threads, that contain stuff that i am interested, and stuff i didn't know even existed brfore reading it here.

Like this for instance, a man living in harmony with nature on a farm hears his home country is under attack, and goes to the war and exterminates intruders so effectively, that its only possible by one who works from his heart.

My grandfather fought with Simo Häyhä. While he still was an amazing sniper/sub machine gunner, from what I've been told the rifle kills were closer to 250-300 and SMG in the same range. He never really talked about the war, but I do know that he decided to fight after the Russians massacred most of his family in ways I don't think I can talk about on here.

I will say though that it was bad enough for him to never want to return to Finland, and after a brief time in Sweden after the war he moved to New York where he died in an upstate hospital because no one cared enough to prevent him from contracting HUGE bedsores. The one that eventually led to his death was all the way down to his hip bone.

Way to honor people that actually stand up and fight oppressors/invaders.

Sniper Part from Saving Private Ryan



was Simo Hayha a real live PVT Jackson ?


as the Finnish sniper had no scope !en.wikipedia.org...

luckily Simo Haya did not come aross these guys Vasily Zaytsev & Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin en.wikipedia.org...
Enemy at the Gates is based on Him

or the German Hero from Glorious Bastards ( Nations Pride )



Full version Nations Pride

reply to post by TV_Nation


Really cool story, I've never heard of him before. One question though.. how do you confirm a kill with a sub-machine gun? I assume these were on the frontline with lots of people firing all at once?

This guy was beast.
2nd

Originally posted by wrathchild
somebody needs to make a movie about this guy.

nice post.

I would totally watch it!

I'd love a movie made about this guy!

Amazing post and interesting, never heard of him! S&F to the OP!

Originally posted by TheLaughingGod
I'm dismayed by my countries unwillingness to go to war against Russia, though we did send material and volunteers at least(we had some 130-300 nazi volunteers too even though it was prohibited, mostly Waffen SS).

Looks like you are proud of your country's association and comradery with the Nazis and the SS in particular! You guys also supplied Nazis with iron, and it cost the Allies many, many lives. How about you shed some tears on that front, dude.

Something to be proud of, really

Originally posted by Foppezao
great post, amazing story!.. without a scoped rifle, this guys must 've had eagle vision, i wonder what the distance was..A true master in stealth...

As somebody posted here, the kills were mostly at 200-350 yard range. It's not an earth-shattering case of marksmanship, although his bravery and ability to withstand the elements are super impressive!

I rarely get to practice with a rifle (once every few years, really), but recently I was able to hit the target from a 100 yards with plain iron sites and no problem (and no training) at all. I recall being able to hit a silhouette target from 200m with an AK-47 when I was young.

That Finn is really something, I quite agree1!

Oh I agree about Carlos Hathcock. He was another pure legend, he had 90ish confirmed kills and was so deadly that the North Vietnamese trained a special sniper platoon just to kill him ... Carlos killed them all and shot the platoon leader through his own scope.
en.wikipedia.org...

Nice read, The White Death is one of my favorite reads from WW2. If you enjoy reading about insane feats by incrediable people you should check out www.badassoftheweek.com.... It is updated every friday and lists different people every week, some are fictional, from movies and such, but the majority are real and feature some fairly crazy feats. Personally I enjoy the writers style of blending the real and making it sound even more unrealistic. Anyways, thought I would share that website with you all, hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

[edit on 4/15/2010 by misguided]

If you ever read the very good book by Danion Brinkley "Saved by the Light" he talks about a life review process at the end of your life where you have to experience all the pain you caused in this life by your words or deeds. Danion killed a few people as a solider and he said he had to experience all the grief of not only the people he killed but all their families as well. He said it was a very paintful process and one in which he was quite ashamed of all his actions. But at the end of it all, he was only met with total forgiveness for his actions by his guides.

All I can say is if Danion is correct, this person's life review must have been quite paintful and long to go through as he had to go through 700 rings of families and friends for all these people. That's a lot of pain he inflicted there!

peace

I can see that the sniper is this story is a righteous warrior who has been rewarded with long life. Considering what the righteous warrior has had to do to survive, he has had to face life and death first hand, the only motivation was doing what was right and surviving to live another day with no judgment over those he shot.

In the aftermath of this mans heroic and noble history, I see the hand of providence in this story and it bodes well for being a stand up righteous person willing to face evil and to do what has to be done to overcome evil and defeat evil.

Not a motivation for yourself, but to defeat them for the sake of mankind. A personal fight for freedom where the fight is taken to the enemy so close you can see "he white of his eyes." In such combat scenarios, life and death take on a whole new meaning. In such situations the two types of humans become clear. The talkers and the doers. In other circles is called walking the talk and if you cant walk the walk, you're just a phony who is doing nothing but talking the talk.

The "talkers" end up dying and the "doers" end up achieving something that benefited not just the hero of this story, but the nation he served. A noble story indeed that can serve as an excellent example of what a real man does when faced with defending his nation against those that would come to kill and enslave the surviving population under the umbrella of war and oppression.

Thanks for the posting.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by TV_Nation


A good lesson for sure, hopefully younger people are reading this amazing story and learning from it. Following orders is the big gateway to evil actions. We must be so mindful of humanity's small elite group of warmongers at the "top of the pyramid" and ceaselessly raise ourselves up so they do not affect humanity and tragically influence the people like both this sniper and the russians he murdered.

Humanity is one family, always was and always will be. What a sad, rotten and deluded belief system is our one of military honor, wars, loyalty, following orders etc. It just keeps the wheel of karma turning and turning.

Do not support the warmongers and the anti-Christs!

That is one solid and resilient patriot.

I wonder how many of us would react facing a similar situation.

I prefer rifles without lenses.

Originally posted by PsykoOps

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!

Thank you for your informative reply!
I suspect small countries always have to face pressure from the big "allies". It's always damn if you do, damn if you don't. Being from a country that the British allies used as much as they could in fighting the Axis then fueled a civil war, I understand completely.
I am however sad this war hero wasn't treaded as such by his own country, but there is nothing new in that, many unknown heroes exist through wars, at least this one got his name up there.
Another thing I want to note is that the Winter War is the absolute proof that Stalin was either completely crazy, completely idiot, completely working against his own people or all of these things together. Sadly it only needs a few people like that and hen disaster happens.

While I am certainly not as knowledgeable about the Winter War as some of the native Finns posting here, I have studied it due to my heritage. Some interesting things emerge.

Stalin thought he would show Hitler how powerful his Red Army was so he decided Finland was a good target. Oops. The Soviet failure was another reason why Hitler felt he could attack Russia and win.

So why did the Russians do so badly? The Finns wore white uniforms to hide in the snow. The Russians did not. The Finns were on skis most often. The Russians were not. The Finns knew the country side. The Russians did not. The Finns would move the road signs to direct the Russian column across the frozen lake. Kaboom.

With very little help from outside, the Finns maintained an overall kill ratio of 10 to 1. The joke was, "What do you do with the 11th Russian?"

This is not the first time in history the Finns have fought the Russians. Finland had been a shield for Sweden against the Russians for centuries. So the Finns that were left were either very good at dodging armies, or were tough enough to have lived through numerous wars.

The Finns allied with the Germans because the Soviets were attacking. They were also the only country to pay their war debt completely.

Sisu is one of the defining characteristics of Finns. It is a concept beyond stubborn. It is the will, determination, perseverance, mental fortitude to do and finish whatever it is that you have decided to do and let nothing stop you. This thead is about a sniper with sisu, and Russians were his target.

reply to post by SassyCat

Well it is true. He had perfected his art, if I remember correct he was a hunter previous and most Scandinavians learn to hunt anyway...


reply to post by Rockpuck

When your countries being invaded morality doesnt really come up as an issue. This wasnt him massacring Russia. They brought it on themselves.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
Looks like you are proud of your country's association and comradery with the Nazis and the SS in particular! You guys also supplied Nazis with iron, and it cost the Allies many, many lives. How about you shed some tears on that front, dude.

Something to be proud of, really

Um you obviously didnt understand his quote. Sweden was NOT comrade or associated with nazis. You are ridiculously ignorant, where do you think Scandinavian Jews went to go hide in WWII?!!

Swedes also trained and supplied the Norwegian resistance at police bases etc. If not for them WWII would have been wayyyyy different. Sweden only tried to stay neutral not to get devastated. Norway tried as well (like in WWI) but this time not so lucky. I am sure finland would have as well if not for the Russians invading.