Free Republic

With at least 505 confirmed kills during the Winter War of 1939–40 between Finland and the Soviet Union, Simo Häyhä (1905–2002) has been labelled the deadliest sniper in history. Here, Tapio Saarelainen shares the story of the Finnish sniper and how he achieved his nickname 'White Death'... During his 98-day reign of terror, Häyhä was unseen and unheard, yet was all the while targeting Russian soldiers with deadly accuracy, once even killing 25 men in one day. With snipers presenting such a high-value targets on the battlefield, Simo’s reputation as a marksman soon reached the Russian front lines; they referred...

White Death. The very mention of those two words was enough to strike fear into the hearts of Red Army soldiers who crossed the Soviet Union’s border with Finland during the Winter War of 1939, a brief but brutal conflict that stained the frosted pine forests with the blood of 200,000 Russians. For this was the alias of Simo Hayha, one of the most prolific marksmen in military history. Shrouded in the white, hooded snowsuit that gave him his sinister soubriquet, this ace Finnish sniper, who had honed his craft by hunting animals in the woods where he was raised,...

SAMARRA, Iraq — The sun was sinking at the desert’s edge when Sgt. Randall Davis spotted his target, an armed Iraqi on a rooftop about 300 meters away. “It was just getting dark. I saw a guy step in front of the light,” said the 25-year-old sniper. Davis knew he was watching another sniper by the way the man stepped back into the shadows and crept along the roofline to spy down on a squad from his unit — B Company, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. “Most people, when they get on a roof, will just move around and do...