1941

by  Heikki Kekäläinen Simo Häyhä and the numbers Häyhä was a soldier who filled the boots of a fighter in a tight spot. He was a very efficient soldier and he became sort of an idea or symbol of the fighting spirit of the Winter War already during the war. He was a symbol of the fight between David and Goliath. A man who fought against the mechanized army with a rifle. A man who was made a legend, though as a the humble man he was, he probably did not wish such a fate for himself. But it happened and the legend is more alive today than it ever was. And this legend ofcourse includes the number of RKKA soldier who met their fate through Häyhä´s m/28-30 rifle. In public, in literature and especially in various Internet forums numbers are thrown as truth without any knowledge on the matter. This ofcourse is naturally part of being a legend. These numbers 542, 542 + 200, 700 etc. are without any base or reality in them. The numbers have been invented when time has gone by and now th...

On April 23, 2020, an article by Oleg Kiselev, specializing in the history of the Soviet-Finnish wars, dedicated to the hero of the Finnish national epic was published on the popular and reputable site warspot.ru. The following is a Google translation without editing. SIMO HYUYAHIA: MAN-LEGEND OR MAN-MYTH? Simo Hyayuha is a legendary man, one of the most successful snipers in world history, who is credited with more than 500 to 700 confirmed murders committed in just 98 days of participation in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. According to the Finnish version, on average, Hyayuha dealt with 5-8 Soviet fighters every day, making the Red Army so terrified that they called him "White Death." Gregory Mast, the author of the book “Being a Military Sniper,” suggests that Hyayuha made such an indelible impression on the command of the Red Army that later Soviet propaganda specially “wound up” sniper Mikhail Surkov to score 702 Nazis killed in order to overshadow the achieveme...

Mikhail Ilyich Surkov (1921-1953) - participant of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1st battalion of the 39th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 12th army, foreman. The best sniper of World War II, the number of confirmed destroyed opponents is 702 Born in 1921. Russian. Before the war he lived in the village of Bolshaya Salyr, now the Achinsk District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. He was a taiga hunter. In the Red Army since 1941, he was called up by Achinsky (in the award list - Atchevsky) district commissariat. Candidate for the VKP (b) since 1942. At the end of the war he was transferred to the rear for training snipers. In 1943, after the 7th wound, Mikhail Surkov was sent to the hospital, from where he had to return to his homeland, to the village of Bolshaya Salyr, where the countrymen happily met the hero and elected him chairman of the village council. He died in 1953