'Crack sniper' hid Chinese heritage

Billy Sing earned the nicknames "The Murderer" and "The Assassin" as a deadly sniper who shot more than 200 Ottoman troops during the Gallipoli campaign of World War I.

He was also part Chinese and among thousands from non-European backgrounds, some of whom hid their identity, who joined the Australian Imperial Force to fight for their country despite being legally barred from signing up.

"He was a real Australian, an Australian at heart even though he had Chinese heritage," his great-nephew Don Smith, 62, said from the small Queensland town of Clermont where Sing was born in 1886, 1,600 km north of Sydney.