Häyhä was born in 1905, joined the Civil Guard at the age of 17, and did his mandatory military service from 1925 to 1927. He was first issued an American-made New England Westinghouse M91 Mosin as a Guardsman. After being discharged form the Army in 1927, he returned to active Civil Guard membership while living and working on his family farm in Karelia. He developed a reputation as an excellent marksman, both in competitive shooting and as a hunter.
When the Civil Guard developed the M28-30 pattern of Mosin, Häyhä was once of many who opted to pay a part of the cost to have his own personal rifle to keep at home, and it is with his personal M28-30… that he went to war when the Soviet Union attacked in November 1939, starting the Winter War. The 28-30 featured a new style of sights to replace the Russian Konovalov pattern… In addition, the barrels were free-floated and the stocks made from two spliced pieces of wood to prevent changing temperatures and humidity from impacting rifle zero.
In his 95 days of active service during the Winter War, Simo Häyhä was credited with 542 enemy soldiers killed – mostly with his M28-30 Mosin Nagant (although he did also use the Suomi SMG and LS-26 LMG at times). He finally ran out of luck on March 6, 1940 when he was hit in the face by a Soviet exploding bullet. He was in a coma for 6 days, and spent several months in hospital, where some 26 surgeries were necessary to reconstruct his jaw – and he was permanently disfigured. His name is permanently linked to snipers worldwide, and also to the Winter War legacy “Kollaa kestää” – “Kollaa holds”. He lived a quiet bachelor life as a farmer after the war, breeding hunting dogs and occasionally doing things like taking the President of Finland moose hunting. He passed away peacefully in 2002 at the age of 96.
Ian’s Video: [19:18] https://youtu.be/3XzmCQUPyTM?si=
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Untrue, simo said himself he “practiced” hunting, he was a certified badass and crack shot before Nazi Germany was even a thing.
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the person you replied to is a complete stranger whose opinions should mean fuck all to you
You understand the irony here correct?
I too am a stranger and so are all the people that person generalized and insulted, I’d be just as upset if they said Jews are greedy because it too is an unuseful generalized insult.
Similarly you’re offended, you should take your own advice in the case or at the very least not offer it hypocritically.
oh dear. i tried
Tried what, to take the moral high ground?
How is what I said any more or less insulting then claiming an entire class of people are unhinged murderers.
breathe. count to 10. read this comment thread chain. pay attention to the who is replying to who and what has been said.
have a good day
I aware you’re two separate people, they didn’t try to take the moral high ground. You did.
Patronizing me isn’t an actual argument, how about instead you answer the simple question put to you?
I want to be clear this isn’t specifically replying to you but more so the whole comment chain, including deleted ones.
There’s a lot of places we have on the Internet to be mad at eachother and argue. Let’s keep this a place to share information that interests us, discuss, and learn or otherwise have a good time. Half of the reason I made the community was that there wasn’t a FW community yet. Another half was I wanted a place where people could go to escape from negativity and enjoy what interests them.
We all have differences, but I’d like to think we can put those aside and not let them distract from our commonalities.
i wish you well