Häyhä also put snow in his mouth, keeping his breath cold enough to eradicate the condensation cloud that would otherwise appear. And though Häyhä once disclosed that he killed soldiers from as far away as 1,400 feet, he used only his firearm’s foresights, never mounting a scope on the rifle, out of fear that his enemy might notice the sun’s glare in it.
Despite killing hundreds of men, there is no evidence that his mind suffered the kind of scarring his face had endured.
For his Häyhä biography, Tapio Saarelainen asked him if he ever had nightmares about the Winter War. “I am a happy and fortunate man,” Häyhä responded. “I have always slept well, even during battles on the front.”