The Great War: Aussie sniper was on the ball!

Billy Sing was one of the most feared snipers at Gallipoli

Billy Sing was a celebrated man-hunter. When put into the battlefield of Gallipoli, he was one the most feared snipers of this campaign. He had over 200 ‘kills’ and that made Sing, a Light Horseman from Queensland, a dangerous man.

Sing, a former ‘roo shooter, became a marked man. He was cool, lethal and focused, was how one writer described him. 

He was a mortal most feared by the Turks. A loaded weapon in Sing’s hand was a problem as deadly as any mortar gun. Fellows who knew him well said Sing should be regarded as “an extraordinary man”.

The Saga of Billy Sing

A plaque put up in his honour sums up our feeling for him: “Let us be grateful that Billy Sing was one of ours.”

Sing was eventually awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal “for conspicuous gallantry” as a sniper at Anzac Cove on March 10, 1916. In France “he led a unit at the Battle of Polygon Wood, in counter-sniper operations,” and he was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre.

SING WAS A HERO. HE WAS AWARDED 

THE DISTINGUISHED CONDUCT MEDAL FOR 

GALLANTRY. BILLY SING WAS REGARDED AS “A MOST      

EXTRAORDINARY MAN”.

He married a Scottish lass in Edinburgh in 1917, and arrived home in Proserpine, Queensland in 1918. “The town turned out to greet him … there were brass bands, speeches and congratulations from dignitaries.”

Although Sing found it hard to settle down, there was another event in store: his wife left him.

He was given a settlement block but found the country was “unsuitable” for farming, so he moved to the Miclere goldfield; then in 1942, he left for Brisbane to be near his surviving sister and worked as a labourer.

On May 19, 1943, in died in a boarding house in Brisbane from a ruptured aorta aged 57.

Gone was the World War 1 hero, “a man who saved many Australian lives.”

<< Frank Morris. The story of us; Issue 2; Feb 26, 2015.

Australia’s Deadliest Sniper: Remembering Sniper Billy Sing

Great Tribute: The War Horse  

The horses are coming! A horseman trains his horse with useful tricks during their sojourn together. This ploy gets he and his horse out of danger. The horse has stamina and patience; and is brave when it comes to the crush.

The horses were defiant; and they dared a challenge. In this case, horses were true ANZACS. The first horses brought to Australia by Captain Phillip on the First Fleet in 1778, were a stallion, three mares and two yearling fillies.
 

Bill the Bastard, Australia’s greatest war horse, took on the enemy with his patience, courage and stamina.
 

Unfortunately, not long after the equines were brought ashore all but the stallion and a filly escaped into the bush. Walers, the Australian-bred horses, were names given to these wild brumbies.

Horses were used extensively as cavalry mounts in the Boer War and World War I. Native-born horses, ‘Walers’, which were shipped to India for use by the British Army … using a term that originally meant ‘New South Wales’.

Horses were obviously chosen because of their stamina, patience and courage.

Two Steps from Hell - Victory Charge