A while ago, I watched a movie ( Australian ) called William Kelly's War.
It was based on the true story of two brothers who fought in WWI.
The brothers had come from a farming background in rural Queensland Australia and their father only gave them one bullet to use when shooting "roos. " ( for my American readers that means kangaroos.)
As a result, the young William, or Billy as he was called, became a damned fine shot.
In the war, this served him well and he became a sniper.
William Edward Sing, DCM (2 March 1886 – 19 May 1943) was an Australian soldier of Chinese and English descent who served in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, best known as a sniper during the Gallipoli Campaign. He took at least 150 confirmed kills during that campaign, and may have had over 200 kills in total. However, contemporary evidence puts his tally at close to 300 kills.
Because he was accustomed to using one bullet, he made his shot count. He was born in Clermont, Queensland, Australia, to a Chinese father and an English mother. Sing enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914.
Sing's marksmanship skills were exceptional, and he quickly gained a reputation as a skilled sniper during his service in Gallipoli and later on the Western Front in France. He was particularly noted for his accuracy and stealth, often using a .303 Lee-Enfield rifle with a telescopic sight to pick off enemy soldiers from concealed positions.
On 24 October 1914, two months after the outbreak of war, Sing enlisted as a trooper in the Australian 5th Light Horse Regiment of the Australian Imperial Force. His Certificate of Medical Examination at the time showed that he stood at 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) and weighed 141 pounds (64 kg).
Sing began his military career as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces in the Gallipoli Campaign in modern day Turkey. Biographer John Hamilton described the Turkish terrain thus: "It is a country made for snipers. The Anzac and Turkish positions often overlooked each other. Each side sent out marksmen to hunt and stalk and snipe, to wait and shoot and kill, creeping with stealth through the green and brown shrubbery ..." Sing partnered with spotters Ion 'Jack' Idriess and, later, Tom Sheehan. The spotter's task was to observe (spot) the surrounding terrain and alert the sniper to potential targets. Idriess described Sing as "a little chap, very dark, with a jet black moustache and goatee beard. A picturesque looking mankiller. He is the crack shot of the Anzacs."
Chatham's Post, a position named after a Light Horse officer, was Sing's first sniping post. Biographer Brian Tate wrote, "It was here that Billy Sing began in earnest his lethal occupation." An account by Private Frank Reed, a fellow Australian soldier, states that Sing was so close to the Turkish lines that enemy artillery rarely troubled him. His comrades left three particular enemy positions to his attention: a trench at 350 yards (320 m) from his post, a communication sap at 500 yards (460 m), and a track in a gully at 1,000 yards (910 m). According to Reed, "Every time Billy Sing felt sorry for the poor Turks, he remembered how their snipers picked off the Australian officers in the early days of the landing, and he hardened his heart. But he never fired at a stretcher-bearer or any of the soldiers who were trying to rescue wounded Turks.
Sing's reputation resulted in a champion Turkish sniper, nicknamed 'Abdul the Terrible' by the Allied side, being assigned to deal with him. Tate alleges that the Turks were largely able to distinguish Sing's sniping from that of other ANZAC soldiers, and that only the reports of incidents believed to be Sing's work were passed on to Abdul. Through analysis of the victims' actions and wounds, Abdul concluded that Sing's position was at Chatham's Post. After several days, Sing's spotter alerted him to a potential target, and he took aim, only to find the target—Abdul—looking in his direction.Sing prepared to fire, trying not to reveal his position, but the Turkish sniper noticed him and began his own firing sequence. Sing fired first and killed Abdul. Very shortly thereafter, the Turkish artillery fired on Sing's position—he and his spotter barely managed to evacuate from Chatham's Post alive.
Near the beginning of August 1915, Sing was hospitalised for four days with influenza. That same month, an enemy sniper's bullet struck Sheehan's spotting telescope, injuring his hands and face, and then hit Sing's shoulder, but the latter was back in action after a week's recuperation. Sheehan was more severely wounded, and was shipped back to Australia. This was reportedly the only time that Sing was injured at Gallipoli. He would not fare so well later on in the war.
At the end of November 1915, Sing suffered from myalgia and was confined to the hospital ship HMHS Gloucester Castle for almost two weeks. During this time, he was conveyed to Malta, then Ismaïlia, Egypt. While in Egypt, he was also hospitalised with parotitis and mumps, but rejoined his unit at the end of March 1916.
Sing transferred to the 31st Infantry Battalion on 27 July 1916 at Tel-el-Kibir and sailed to England the following month. Following a brief period of training in England, he sailed for France and entered action on the Western Front in January 1917. He was wounded in action several times,and commended many times in reports by Allied commanders. In March 1917, he was wounded in the left leg and hospitalised in England. In May 1917, while recovering in Scotland, he met waitress Elizabeth A. Stewart (c. 1896–unknown), who was the daughter of Royal Navy cook George Stewart. The two were married on 29 June 1917 in Edinburgh. In July 1917.
After a month with his new wife, Sing returned to the trenches in France in August 1917, but was in very poor health due to his battle wounds and the effects of gas poisoning. It is not clear whether he operated as a sniper on the Western Front, but in September 1917, he led a unit in the Battle of Polygon Wood in counter-sniper operations. For this action, he was awarded the Oorlogskruis (Belgian Croix de Guerre) in 1918, and was also recommended for the Military Medal—but never received it. In November 1917, he was confined to hospital again due to problems with his previously wounded leg. In mid-February 1918, he was hospitalised due to a gunshot wound in the back. Sing suffered lung disease from his exposure to gas, and it soon brought his military career to an end. source
Billy returned to Clermont. He moved on to a mining claim on the Miclere goldfield. In 1942, he left the district for Brisbane. On Wednesday, May 19, 1943, William Edward Sing died alone in his room with five shillings in his pocket at the house where he boarded in West End, Brisbane. He was 57 years old.
For the 100th anniversary commemoration of the Gallipoli landings, a monument was erected to Sing in the Lutwyche Cemetery in Brisbane, near his gravestone, by the 31st Battalion Association Brisbane Branch, in conjunction with Kedron Wavell RSL, Chermside & District Historical Society & Chinese Association of Qld. It was officially unveiled on the anniversary of his death.
Each year on the weekend immediately before Anzac Day (25 April), the William 'Billy' Sing Memorial Shooting Competition is held at the North Arm Rifle Range on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland using the Lee Enfield military service rifle. The competition is held over several hundred metres worth of stages with the highest scorer awarded the William 'Billy' Sing Memorial Trophy.
Despite his hardships, he is remembered as one of Australia's most skilled and celebrated snipers, and his legacy lives on in military history.
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