Billy Sing
William Edward 'Billy' Sing, DCM (2 March 1886 – 19 May 1943) was a Chinese Australian soldier who served in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) 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. One contemporary estimate put his tally at close to 300 kills. Towards the end of the war, Sing married a Scottish woman, but the relationship did not last long. Following work in sheep farming and gold mining, he died in relative poverty and obscurity in Brisbane during World War II.
A biography by John Hamilton, Gallipoli Sniper: The life of Billy Sing, was published in 2008. A television mini-series based on this book, The Legend of Billy Sing, is in post-production as of 2010. The production has attracted controversy due to the director's decision to cast actors of white ancestry in the roles of Sing and his father, since Sing's father was Chinese.
Read more about Billy Sing: Early Life, Return To Civilian Life, Later Life, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words billy and/or sing:
“Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That’s the way for Billy and me.”
—James Hogg Hoffmann (1770–1835)
“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.... Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)