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Meet the Deadliest Sniper to Ever Live · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: On a brutally cold winter's day in 1939, there's the sun rose over the forest of the Coralia in Finland.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soviet soldiers marched through the snowy woodland.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Little did they know those would be their last moments.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the men progress through the snowy terrain, a bullet whistle through the air,
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: The remaining men suddenly realized what was happening and bolted for cover, but no matter where they tried to hide, they were gradually picked off one by one.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a matter of minutes the entire group had perished, but who or what was behind their demise.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The answer line around a thousand feet away, and at first he was virtually impossible to see, but lurking under the snow with a rifle in hand was the finished sniper, Simo Haiha, otherwise known as the White Death.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Extraordinary a feat as it seems, this was just another day for hi-ha.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the time the winter war finished in March 1940, he'd taken down over 500 Soviet soldiers all on his own, crowning him the deadliest sniper to have ever lived.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet, despite the awesome achievement of this man, his story isn't widely known.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So who really was Simo Hayah, and how did he become the deadliest neighbor of the world has ever seen?
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Born in 1905 and around the Art of East, southeast and Finland, Hayah was the seventh of
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: When he wasn't helping his family out on the farm, he enjoyed hobbies like shooting and skiing.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: He frequently go out to hunt foxes even though the animal's small stature and speed makes them notoriously difficult to hunt.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was here that hi-ha honed his sniper-like hunting abilities by tuning them to a point.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: that would prove vinyl later in his life.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't long before the fan shooting skill became more than just a hobby.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He started entering shooting competitions which he almost always won.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Simo was so successful that the hi-ha household was said to be full of all the shooting trophies that he picked up as a youngster.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: With his superior skills as a sharpshooter, it's no wonder that in 1922, at the age of 17, I'm volunteered for the Finnish Guard, a paramilitary organization that provided military training to its members.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But after this, there was no going back for him.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: This first taste of military training he received would eventually lead to a life far away from the farm and a pretty much bigger than Fox's.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before we dive any deeper, when I'll just test out your own aiming abilities by aiming at that fellow button.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the case you don't follow the podcast already, obviously.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: See how you measure up to Simo?
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well done.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep going.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just two years later, at the age of 19, the 5-foot 3 inches tall high-up again, a 15-month compulsory military services a member of the Bicycle Battalion.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, heard that right.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may sound like a really bad joke, but back in the early 20th century, Bicycle Infantry was important for maneuvering soldiers between battlefields via military bicycles.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aside from pushing battles, Sumo clearly picked up some military knowledge, and by the time he was honouredly discharged, she'd been promoted to the rank of Corporal.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: After his exploits in the military, you might have expected Zemos sniping career to take off, but that wasn't the case, not immediately at least.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: After completing his service with the bicycle battalion, he returned to his home and get back to work on the farm.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not much of a hero's story is it, but that's not all he did.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the 1920s, the finished civil guard equipped their armory with a Mosin Nagat M2830 rifle, replacing the Russian Army M91 Mosin Nagat.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: This manually operated bolt-action rifle was much improved on its predecessor with an enhanced rear sight and magazines that were designed to prevent jamming.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even more importantly, Finnish soldiers who'd served in the syllogard were given the option to part-purchase the M2830 rifle to keep for themselves.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like to imagine Simo was first in line, predictably he didn't waste any time in getting familiar with the weapon in surprise, Simo was an ace with the M2830 in his hands.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just as Major Tapio's Serrelinant, a man who'd had the privilege of witnessing Simo's sniping skills first hand.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: On one occasion, he saw Hiha accurately hit a target some 500 feet away.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of it was a fluke though, while apparently not considering he hit the target a staggering 16 times.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and did I mention he hit that target 16 times in just one minute?
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just wondering did anyone actually check this guy with some early form of AI?
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: What makes this achievement even more incredible is the fact that Hyo would have been using his M2830 rifle without using any fancy scopes or telescopic gear to enhance his aim.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was just that good.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: This weapon is manually fed with a five cartridge magazine.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means during the 16 shots, Sima would have had to reload his rifle four times.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It somehow he still managed to fire an accurate shot every 3.75 seconds.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, that's some Terminator Stales shooting if I ever heard it.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If only there was some way for Simo to exhibit his extraordinary talent in combat.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, as it happened during the 1930s, the atmosphere across Europe began to turn pretty sour, and nowhere were things becoming more tense than in Finland.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: To understand why, first, we need to turn the clocks back all the way to the early 19th century.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in 1809, Finland was part of the Swedish Empire.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, after their defeat to the Russian Empire during the Finnish Wars, Sweden surrendered Finland to the Russian Empire.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just over 100 years later, in 1917, the Russian Empire collapsed.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Finland took advantage of the chaos to declare independence from Russia.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for the fans, they wouldn't enjoy their freedom for long.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the 1930s, the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin pursued a policy of territorial expansion.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Stalin was fearful that Germany would use Finland as a base of operation for attacks against the Soviet Union, so he wanted to station troops in Finland and forced the Russo-Banish border 20 miles to the northwest carving out a buffer zone to protect the Soviet Union from Germany.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite having a population just 2% the size of the Soviet unions, Finland refused.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not that Stalin cared.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: After Finland's rebuttal, the Soviet Union began invading Finland's Eastern border on the 30th of November 1939, starting what became known as the Winter War.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: His objective was to occupy the entire territory of Finland by the end of the year.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Soviet Union were so confident they would succeed the army they sent over even included a military band for their planned victory parade in Helsinki.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fairness, they had a good reason to assume they'd win, and all 21 Soviet divisions marched into Finland totalling Omega 450,000 men, as well as 6,000 tanks and over 3,000 aircraft.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of that compared to Finland's 300,000 soldiers, 32 tanks and barely over 100 aircraft.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: A paper it looked like a giant preparing to step on a bug.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't look like much of a fair fight does it?
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, while Stalin's masses of men were familiar with the frosty conditions of Russian winters, they were unprepared for just how bitter the finish whether would be.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Temperatures dropped to a spine-chilling negative, 45 degrees Fahrenheit, creating bitterly cold conditions that the red Army troops just weren't prepared for.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: To make matters worse for them, Soviet uniforms weren't warm enough to cope with the cold, and it was even worse for injured troops, due to the icy conditions and tricky terrain, medical services weren't able to quickly tend to any injured men.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, many wounded soldiers lay injured in the snow, more often than not freezing to death.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But soldiers weren't the only part of the Soviet war machine that were suffering in the harsh finished conditions.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the men carrying them the Soviet weapons struggled in the snow and weren't designed to function in such punishingly cold conditions.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Guns malfunctioned, engines stalled and motor vehicles froze.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: To make things even worse for the Soviet soldiers their lives were in the hands of inexperienced military leaders.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the late 1930s stolen fuel by his paranoia of a potential rival had thousands of his military experts imprisoned in many were also
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, executed.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This event known as the Great Purge may have eased Stalin's paranoia, but its impact was catastrophic for the Soviet Union, with the Red Army becoming highly disorganized and lack of generals with military knowledge and experience.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike their enormous enemy finish forces, we're far more prepared for the Winter War.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: For a start, they knew the snowy terrain in eastern Finland, like the back of their hands.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many soldiers glided through the Baltic battlefield on skis, allowing them to launch quick agile attacks on the long winding columns of Red Army troops and supplies.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: and in contrast to the Soviets finished troops were supplied with warm coats preventing soldiers from subcoming to an icy end.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Importantly, Finnish coats were also white, unlike the men on the red army who were supplied with khaki-colored uniforms, making them stick out like 450,000 sword thubs on the white wintery battlefield.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there was one more force pushing the finished troops forward in the winter war, one that Stalin could have never seen coming.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Any guesses?
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, it's our man's seam, oh hi ha!
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The short sharp shooter was stationed in Correlia, a region that was then in Southeastern Finland.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Armed with his M2830 rifle, the very same one that had been using back on the farm for many years, Hayah set up in the snowing mountains near the Kula River.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here, he'd conceal himself in the snow, patiently waiting until he'd caught sight of an unsuspecting enemy.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: After several hours his patients is rewarded as a Soviet soldier emerges out of the trees.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: High house has been in this position a thousand times before, except usually he's taking aim at a fox or target not an enemy fighter.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He studies himself positions his rifle and fires.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The bullet whizzes a thousand feet through the air before piercing through the khaki uniform
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even on the battlefield, Simo is a sure shot.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Important as it was to take down as many Soviet fighters as possible, I thought took no pleasure in killing.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he even said, I only did my duty and what I was told to do as well as I could.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Turns out that Simo carrying out his duty very well indeed.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Virtually every day of the winter war, hi-ha would rack up kills consistently sniping down Soviet soldiers from his snow-covered box holes hundreds of feet away.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the time the winter war ended, he'd racked up over 500 kills with his trustee in 2830.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The exact number of confirmed kills is unknown, but most sources agree that the numbers between 500 and 5 and 542.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: If that wasn't mind blowing enough, I had achieved that count in just 98 days of fighting.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means that this guy was recording well over five sniper kills every single day.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, even that doesn't do justice to high-hust towering, Tally.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, in winter, Finland only receives around six hours of daylight, meaning that on most days, high-how would have had just a few hours to take aim against the Soviet forces.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: To break it down, high-oh was fighting for 98 days, and on each day he'd have about six hours
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means in total, he'd only have had about 590 hours on the battlefield in which he'd be able to fire his rival in conditions with decent visibility.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he was increasing his kill-tally virtually every hour he was fighting.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden that 500-plus kill count got all that more impressive.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although Hi-O was taking down Soviet soldiers practically every day, there was one occasion
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the 21st of December 1939, Christmas was just around the corner, but hi-ha wasn't in much of a festive mood, on that day alone he'd clocked up 25 confirmed kills, all in a mere 6 hours.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means that Simo was taking down a Soviet soldier on average every 14 minutes.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't even take a toilet break in that time, but it wasn't just the high kill count that made high house such a deadly sniper.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was also able to accurately snip at the enemy from huge distances.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Typically his shooting range would be a thousand feet, however his longest recorded kill was from a whopping 1,500 feet away.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: For reference, that's longer than the length of 4
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything this man can't do when he's got a rifle in his hands?
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're probably wondering how could high other 5-foot 3-to-all bicycle-writing farm-boy transform into such a deadly sniper?
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: For starters, you think that he'd have some super scope attached to his rifle, one with massive magnification, or maybe some sort of infrared heating to easily pick out the enemy.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, Simo didn't use a scope at all, and steady-related solely on his weapons iron site, the basic metal notches built right into the barrel.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the reason for high-ass scopeless rifle wasn't to show up to his comrades.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Strange attack took as it sounds going without a scope was for his own benefit.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The scope of a sniper can glint when light reflects off the lens, so, and seeking to remain as discreet as possible, I had ditched the scope in favor of the old-fashioned and conspicuous approach.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: On top of that, a scope requires the shooter to lift their head a couple of inches higher than they do normally to look through the lens and creasing their chances of being spotted or shut.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most importantly though, I had grown used to aiming down the iron sights of rifles while held hunting back on the farm.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and judging by the success he'd enjoyed without a scope, he was probably right and not changing his approach.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just the scope or lack of then how I had grown used to.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was also using the exact rifle that he trained with back on the farm.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than switch to a newer fancier weapon for the Winter War, I have favored the M2830 for its reliability and the consistency of the shot.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a particularly flashy weapon, but it was one that he'd master.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: On top of that, being a finished-made weapon, the M2830 was constructed with an Arctic perch stuck, preventing the weapon from warping in the frigid finish conditions.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And at a time where Soviet equipment was failing to cope with the cold reliability was everything.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Simo's prior hunting experience also meant that he'd mastered the skills of patience, the importance of breathing in the ability to judge distances before the war had even begun.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Granted, the stakes were much higher now, he certainly wasn't hunting foxes anymore, but Simo had all the training, talent, and experience needed to become a superior sniper.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aside from his clear talent for shooting in his familiarity with the M2830, a large part of what made Hayah so gently was the immense time and preparation he put into each shot, even during the dead of night in the freezing finish force, Hayah refused to rest.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: While his compatriots left Hayah practiced his various firing positions and looked for the perfect fox holes that had clear sight of the enemy's round.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: When morning came, there wasn't a chance that the Soviets would have clear side of him, though.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dressed in his white winter coat, Seema would lie still in snowy fogs holes for hours on in, remaining will hidden and perfectly camouflaged with his wintery surroundings.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had even developed a few curious quirks to improve his sniping further.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd frequently pour water onto the snow in front of him.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may assume that it's just high as way up as in the time as he awaits his next victim, but then you'd be underestimating his genius.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Due to the cold conditions, the water would quickly freeze over the snow.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: This meant that when he took a shot, the muzzle blast from his gun wouldn't expose his location by disturbing the lights no in front of him.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Genius.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Simo wasn't finished there with the snow tricks, he'd literally eat snow.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But not for sustenance, although undoubtedly hunger would have tested him as he only aged sugar cubes and dry bread, white foods that didn't require cooking and wouldn't give away his position during hunting time.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Actually by consuming snow though, he prevented the Soviets from spotting the condensation from his warm breath as he breathed out in the cold air.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I get brain freeze just by looking at ice cream, and reminding him Lump after Lump of super cold snow.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Testing as these practices may have been, the planning and dedication that went into locating the perfect position in remaining discrete maids seem impossible for the Soviets to track down.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unsurprisingly, with his ever-rising kill count and the looseivity, it didn't take long for Simoda rise to fame.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The finished newspapers heralded the sharpshooter is the white death and he became a heroic figure that could help Finland resist the Soviet Union.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon the image of the white death became imprinted on the minds of bins everywhere.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: He became a legendary guardian spirit who glided through the snow like a ghost taking out Soviet soldiers at his will.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cult of the White Death was so prominent that even the Soviets began to refer to him by that name.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No doubt they were left shaking and not just because of the cold conditions.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's safe to say I'm going to be having some tools didn't nightmares about the white dead hunting meat out.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But how does he stack up to some of history's other notable snipers?
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, when Simo was still a child, Canadian sniper Francis Bacchalla Goba was serving his country during World War I.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: In his youth, he too was a hunter helping him develop a keen eye for shooting.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: This translated on to the battlefield, in his three years of service, Francis killed some 378 German troops, making him the deadliest sniper of war war war war.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just over 20 years later, another great sniper emerged, but I'm not talking about our boy Seemo.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fueled or O'Coup La Cove was a Soviet sniper that served with the Red Army during World War II.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Prior to the war he attended sharp shooting training, earning a Volrochelov, shooter badge for his accuracy.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not long after a Kulup glove and his brother were both enlisted
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, combat claimed his brother's life and a grieving feudal, vowed to avenge him.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And safe to say he did that.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Between 1942 and 1944, he racked up an astonishing 429 sniper kills.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: In more modern times, Chris Kyle, the subject of the film American snipers, regarded as the 21st century Supreme sniper.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kyle was a United States Navy SEAL sniper who served four tours in the Iraq War between 1999 and 2009.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: In his 10 years of service, the marksman racked up some 160 kills.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: All sounds pretty remarkable, right?
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But extraordinary as the feats of these sharp snipers are, they're still a clips by a little seamo.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, with his 505 plus headcount, I has record towers over the rest.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: He racked up at least 127 more kills than Francis, 76 more than Aquacov, and a staggering 345 more than Chris Kyle.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and don't forget that Hayat achieved his extraordinary feat not in years, like these other snipers, but in just 98 days.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just in case you needed more convincing, remember, see we'll do that without even using a scope.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Safe to say, and ain't much of a contest for the title of world's deadly sniper.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, where were we with the Winter War?
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scared as Stalin may have been of the white death, he was never gonna let Hyah get in the way of his plan for world domination, was he?
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon after, Ohio rose to fame efforts were made to give him a taste of his own medicine.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soviet commanders sent counter-snippers to take him down, but they too were dispatched by the Fed.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the Soviets decided to ramp it up a level.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mortar Barrage is rained down in the area where the sniper was firing from.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Soviets literally bombarded the entire force just to take down one man.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: but they weren't going to get him that easily.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Being so elusive, most of the shells landed nowhere near him.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet as superhuman as he appeared, Simo couldn't avoid the Soviets on slot forever.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: On March 6, 1940, while defending Finnish ground in the 4th of Lizma, Simo was struck in the face by a bullet.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: His jaw was crushed and it blew off most of his cheek.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden everything turned white for the white death as he collapsed to the floor.
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Following the fight finish troops discovered Simo's lifeless corpse and begrudgingly lay him on a pile with the rest of the dead.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet just before the bodies were disposed of a finished soldier spotted some strange movement coming from the pile, Simo's leg was twitching.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: by some miracle he was alive.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But barely.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The damage was so bad that his fellow soldiers claimed that half his head was missing.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: After being rushed to hospital, Hiha went into a coma for seven days during which time Finland lost the war.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coins and ants, I think not.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the war ended on the same day that Hiha woke up.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: who knows maybe those Soviets heard he'd risen again and wanted to finish the war there and then.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Moscow peace treaty that was signed to end the war resulted in Finland seating 11% of its territory to the Soviet Union.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Still considering the size and might of the force they were up against many in Finland viewed the result of the winter war as a victory.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the flip side, the Soviets didn't recognize their progress as much of a triumph.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The key to cruise-shave, the Soviet leader in the 50s and 60s later claimed all of us sensed in our victory at defeat by the Finns.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nowhere were the effects of the Winter War felt more heavily for the Soviets than in the number of casualties.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over 125,000 Soviet soldiers died.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soban was the Soviet casualty total that one Russian general remarked that the land-aid conquered was just enough to bury their dead.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: and a thing seem all the little boy from the farm took down almost 0.5% of them on his own.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite dancing with death, Hyah was one of the fortunate survivors of the war.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: To honor his bravery in scale, he was awarded the Cross of Liberty and the Cross of Kallabattle.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even more impressively, Hyah gained promotion from Corporal to Second Lieutenant, the biggest
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not that he'd be utilizing his ranked jump-to-bark out orders on the battlefield, though.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took years for Hayat to recuperate from his facial injury with lengthy treatments in 26 surgeries.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: While he eventually made a full recovery, the left side of Hayat's face would remain disfigured for the rest of his life.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: With his job visibly drooping and scarred from the impact of the exploding bullet, because of this distinct scarring, Simo was easily recognized whenever he went out in public.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the most part, he was heralded as a war hero by those he met, but none everyone was overjoyed to bump into the white death.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: staunch communists were then finland disapproved of high half or sniping so many Soviets on the battlefield.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So much so that he even received death threats from them.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, protect your own country from the invasion and watch your reward, that threats from the very people you were trying to safeguard.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: With people seemingly after his head, Simo decided to spend much of his post-war life at his parents and siblings' homes rather than his own.
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, he wasn't all bad news for Simo.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: With all the downtime he now had, he returned to the thing in life that he was best at.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Shooting.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Except this time he was sniping down Moose, not Soviet soldiers and now instead of camping and freezing foxes, he was attending Lamar's hunting parties.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if anyone deserved a retirement of luxury, it was Simo.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2002, at the ripe old age of 96, Simo high up, he slowly passed away at his home in South Eastern Finland.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But only enough, even in his later years, he was still able to get one over on his old enemy, alesting the Soviet Union, which had collapsed 11 years before his death.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Simo may no longer be with us, his legacy is still alive today.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: A museum in Sarasthupai has an entire exhibition dedicated to Simo, his rifle is proudly on display, and elsewhere on the internet people have created video game characters in his image.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Glad and his trademark heavy white snow suit in hood.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, the ultimate side of respect.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: No matter how much the odds are stacked against you, see Moia has shown with practice, patience, and maybe a bit of snowmunching even the most extraordinary of feats are possible.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pretty good going for a diminutive farm boy from Benland, don't you think?
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did you make of the world's deadliest sniper?
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time you want to be amazed.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the most important thing you've ever seen in your life.