[2] Following work in sheep farming and gold mining, he died in relative poverty and obscurity in Brisbane during World War II.

[2][6] Sing was born on 3 March 1886 in Clermont, Queensland, Australia, the son of a Chinese father and an English mother.

[24] According to John Laws and Christopher Stewart, he was accepted into the army only after a recruitment officer chose to disregard the fact that Sing was part Chinese; at the time, only those of European ancestry were generally considered suitable for Australian military service.

[25][26][27] 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.

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 ..."[28] Sing partnered with spotters Ion 'Jack' Idriess and, later, Tom Sheehan.

[30] 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.

[3] 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.

"[3] In contrast, Hamilton said in a 2008 interview, "We have an anecdote where, after spotting an injured Turk, he said 'I'll put that poor cuss out of his agony' and just shot him.

"[9] Sing's reputation resulted in a champion Turkish sniper, nicknamed 'Abdul the Terrible' by the Allied side, being assigned to deal with him.

[2] Very shortly thereafter, the Turkish artillery fired on Sing's position—he and his spotter barely managed to evacuate from Chatham's Post alive.

[31] 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.

[29][35] By early September 1915, he had taken 119 kills, according to Brigadier-General Granville Ryrie, commanding officer of the 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade.

[5] Midgely had brought him to the attention of Birdwood, who in turn had told Lord Kitchener that "if his troops could match the capacity of the Queensland sniper the allied forces would soon be in Constantinople.

[2][29] In February 1916, Sing was Mentioned in Despatches by General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.

[32] On 10 March 1916, he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal,[2][8][29][32][38] with a related entry in military records reading: "For conspicuous gallantry from May to September, 1915, at Anzac, as a sniper.

[2][9][32][40] At the end of November 1915, Sing suffered from myalgia and was confined to the hospital ship HMHS Gloucester Castle for almost two weeks.

[42] Australian soldiers stationed in Egypt including Billy Sing were major customers of Egyptian prostitutes in the local red light districts and brothels.

High prices by the prostitutes led to the Wasser red light area becoming the scene of a major riot by New Zealand and Australian soldiers on Good Friday in 1915.

[47] After a month with his new wife, Sing returned to the trenches in France in August 1917,[25][33][48] but was in very poor health due to his battle wounds and the effects of gas poisoning.

[2][54][55] Other accounts, however, state that although Sing arranged for passage from Scotland to Australia for his wife, there was no evidence that she made the journey.

Sing was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry, the Belgian Croux [sic] De Guerre and mentioned often in despatches.

[60][61][e]The Queensland Military Historical Society set up a bronze plaque at 304 Montague Road, South Brisbane, where Sing had died.

'[33] On 19 May 2009, the 66th anniversary of Sing's death, the Chinese Consul-General, Ren Gongping, along with Returned and Services League of Australia officers and community leaders, laid wreaths at his grave.

[8][33][62] Ren said, "Billy Sing is a symbol of the long history of Chinese in Australia, and the great role they have played in your nation's past ...

[9][64][65] Hamilton's book includes a detailed account of how snipers worked at Gallipoli and their contribution to the progress of the campaign.

[66] Reviewer John Wadsley wrote that "Hamilton is able to bring together a range of sources to create the story, and while at times, you get the feeling he is padding it out to make up for the lack of direct material about Billy Sing, the book works.

[27] For the 100th anniversary commemoration of the Gallipoli landings, a monument was erected to Sing in the Lutwyche Cemetery in Brisbane, near his grave stone, by the 31st Battalion Association Brisbane Branch, in conjunction with Kedron Wavell RSL, Chermside and District Historical Society, and Chinese Association of Queensland.

The competition is held over several hundred metres worth of stages with the highest scorer awarded the William 'Billy' Sing Memorial Trophy.

[10] d. ^ Historian Alastair Kennedy (2009) reported that Sing's medical records from December 1917, a few months after he married, stated that he was diagnosed at first with venereal disease and then syphilis.

[71] Apart from Australia, the controversy has been reported in Canada,[83][84] Kuwait,[85] Macau,[86] Malaysia,[87] New Zealand,[88] Singapore,[89] Taiwan,[90][91] Thailand,[92] and the United Kingdom.