Posted on 01/14/2020 4:34:22 PM PST by Daffynition
The war was nearly over on March 6, 1940. The enemy, propagandized as an unstoppable fighting machine, was indeed overwhelming the army of the country they’d invaded. Six days later, the aggressors would finally force an armistice, and soon grab control of much of the land they’d coveted. It had taken longer than the two weeks they’d anticipated, but conditions were harsh, the defenders far more resolute than expected. For more than three months, battlefields roared with motoring tanks, gunfire and artillery explosions, obliterating the natural beauty of the countryside. Through it all, one warrior emerged as perhaps the finest killer in military history, on a mission to serve his besieged nation by picking off foreign attackers — many, many of them — one by one with a sniper rifle.
(Excerpt) Read more at narratively.com ...
Read it this morning and indeed it is a story worth telling...........
They made the Soviets wish they hadn’t been so eager to acquire Finland.
I have read a couple of accounts of that fascinating man.
His rifle was a Moisin Nagant rebuilt and re barrelled by Sako. His favorite gun surprising to me, was a Swedish sub machine gun. He must have engaged in close combat a lot.
He preferred open sights to a scope.
R.I.P. Simo. Thank you. sir.
love
Germany wasn’t a fascist country.
When you consider his climate conditions, a "cold barrel" shot moves to a whole 'nother level...
Not sure when they started filling scopes with nitrogen to cut down fogging, in sub-zero conditions, but I'd bet it was after 1940...
The article does not mention it but the Soviets called him the "White Death".
a brave man, carrying out the duties assigned to him.
As the World War II front lines broadened in the early 1940s, Finland aligned itself with Fascist Nazi Germany.
500 kills with a rifle, 250 with that submachine gun. In 100 days. They called Simo "White Death" for a reason.
Ping.
“Germany wasn’t a fascist country.”
Good grief. Fascism historically originated in Italy, but Nazism comprised a nearly identical program, diverging mainly in the extremism of its ginned up national mythology, vestigial paganism, and ferocious racism.
If he was working an 8 hour day, he pretty much averaged one kill per hour for more than three months. I’m impressed.
Funny how the most talented among us seem to also be the most humble. What a great story about a very talented sniper. Rest in peace, sir.
When the Soviets won on the Eastern Front Finland was the only border country that wasn’t occupied; this was presumably because when they had retaken the land lost in the Winter War, they stopped - they wouldn’t invade the USSR itself. Germany pleaded with them; they could have used the help around Leningrad - but Finland wouldn’t get involved in the larger war. In their peace negotiations with Stalin, they lost the original land taken by the Soviets in the Winter War, but kept their freedom.
So many brave men [and women] who proved the need for our Second Amendment here.
And more noteworthy, the God given RIGHT to defend ourselves, family and country.
A tangential note: We had a Dutch orchard manager, [a strong, tall, burly man who was taken by the Nazis in 1941, to forced labor camp. It was winter when they marched; and his brother and father perished during the freezing march]. Not surprising, he didn’t talk about it much. He was the hardest working man I will ever to have known.
So there was never any discussion of how it would have changed things if he and his family were armed.
My Uncle had a collection off WW2 era scopes. They sucked compared even to a low end scope today.
Italy was Fascist, Germany was Nazi.
But of course Communists never use “Nazi” because it would be an admission that they were fellow socialists.
I see the attempt to equate Naziism, which was racist, with fascism, which was nationalist but not racist, as a sneaky way to connect nationalism with racism.
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