Simo hayha biography of william hill

Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Finnish military sniper — Ruokolahti Church graveyard. Early life, family and education [ edit ]. Militia and military training [ edit ]. Winter War service [ edit ]. Main articles: Winter War and Battle of Kollaa. Achievements as a sniper [ edit ]. Firearms and tactics [ edit ]. Injury [ edit ]. Honours [ edit ].

Post-war life [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Helsingin Sanomat in Finnish. Archived from the original on 11 December Retrieved 19 February The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January Retrieved 30 March Forces Network. Archived from the original on 11 July Retrieved 21 February Archived from the original on 29 March Retrieved 14 March Iltalehti in Finnish.

Archived from the original on 12 June Retrieved 18 July The White Sniper. ISBN Archived from the original on 23 April Retrieved 12 March — via Google Books. Retrieved 9 May Sniper: The Skills, the Weapons, and the Experiences. Martin's Press. He was given a farm in southeast Finland, where he bred dogs and hunted moose. He struggled to come to terms with his role, even receiving death threats from his own people.

During a interview , he was asked if he felt remorse over his actions during the war. There would be no Finland unless everyone else had done the same. Hayha was so successful as a sniper that the Soviet Army sent their own snipers to hunt him down. They were unsuccessful, however, and Simo Hayha continued to rack up kills. In March of , he was shot in the jaw by a Soviet soldier, and he was evacuated to a military hospital.

He survived his injuries, but his face was permanently disfigured, and he was never able to return to combat. Among many compelling accounts that have emerged from that war the story of one individual stands out. A single sniper has been known to keep large numbers of enemy combatants pinned down for long periods of time, everyone being afraid to move into an open position and run the risk of becoming a target for the enemy sharpshooter.

Sniping is a very personal way to wage war. Whereas many soldiers employ a spray-and-pray fire discipline in battle, the sniper actually looks every victim in the face—an intimacy that may cause haunting memories for life.

Simo hayha biography of william hill

There have been many noted snipers—Chris Kyle, a U. But the sniper credited with the largest number of enemy kills is not nearly as well known in the U. He was a Finnish farm boy fighting in the Winter War between Finland and Russia whose official kill total could be as high as Saarelainen interviewed Simo dozens of times between and A military chaplain recorded the number in his diary.

Other sources have used the number He was the seventh of eight children born into a Finnish farm family. He also spent many fond hours trekking through the dense forests that are abundant in his Nordic country. He led the basic no-frills life that was so characteristic of many of his countrymen in that era. He won many shooting competitions, filling a room with trophies.

Shooting a bolt-action rifle, he was able to hit a small target 6 times in a row from meters within a minute. Judged to be non-commissioned officer material, he was sent to the national NCO training academy. His training officers recorded that he exhibited an uncanny ability to judge the distances of remote objects with extreme accuracy, which served him well in the Winter War.