”I did what I was told and I did it as best I could.” 

This is what Simo Häyhä replied at the age of 95 years when he was asked whether he felt any remorse for the things he had done during the war. Simo Häyhä was born in Rautjärvi in 1905 to a family of farmers. His family were keen huntsmen and fishermen. Häyhä joined the Home Guard at 17, did his military service 1925–1926 and completed his sniper training in the 1930s. 

Häyhä served in the war as a marksman. He shot several hundred Soviet soldiers during the Winter War which lasted 105 days. This makes him one of the most efficient marksmen of all time. Häyhä used a common” Pystykorva” (literally spitz ears of a dog) military rifle with an open barrel sight. Towards the end of the Winter War he got seriously wounded in the face. The injuries required several operations. In August 1940, Marshal Mannerheim promoted Häyhä straight from the rank of corporal to second lieutenant. No one else in the Finnish Defence Forces has received such a promotion before or after. 

Despite his request, Häyhä was not allowed to join the Continuation War - this was because of the severity of his injuries. Instead, throughout the Continuation War, he continued farming on his family farm which remained in territory that was to be ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944. After the war, he lived as a farmer in Ruokolahti and continued hunting. Häyhä would go hunting for elk with Finnish President Urho Kekkonen. Häyhä died in a nursing home for war veterans at the age of 96 in 2002.