Wdm bell biography samples

This was Bell's last book compiled from his notes and published posthumously by his lifelong friend, Colonel Townsend Whelen. These newly unearthed short stories find Bell in familiar terrain and with his retinue of trackers and camp followers. He also travelled in unfamiliar territory such as the French Congo where he encounters a man-eating leopard, and West Africa hunting elephants in the rain forest with pygmies.

There are descriptive stories of an elephant camp and its social life, crocodiles that menace a village, several hunts for elephants on islands in the Ubangi River and a trip from Kano to Khartoum in a motor car. Shakari Connection is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.

On that first attempt he made it to the local railway station but, happily, was persuaded to go home again. By the time he was sixteen the shipboard life lost its attraction and in he got himself a job with the Uganda Railway in Darkest Africa shooting pesky lions that were causing problems with railway construction and maintenance, occasionally having the temerity to eat railway workers which was not something that the railway management nor workers were willing to tolerate.

Bell used a single-shot rifle in. Bell appears to have realized that the job shooting man-eating lions with a single shot rifle might lead to his premature demise and that same year,with the help of his family, he headed for the Yukon Gold Rush where, upon realizing that his chances of striking it rich was a gamble with very poor odds, he worked shooting game to supply Dawson City with meat, a job that should have provided a more predictable income than panning for gold.

As it was that was not to be the case however and when his partner did a disappearing act taking almost all the money with him Bell had to sell his. So in a sense Bell got a free passage back to Africa although he was likely to have to earn his wdm bell biography samples there by doing some shooting with a Lee-Metford rifle while keeping his head down to avoid the 7x57mm Mauser bullets the Boers were sending in his general direction.

That Lee-Enfield rifle and ammunition would become the British standard rifle and loading through two world wars until it was replaced by the 7. He reasoned that the military actions had been designed and tested under the most adverse conditions and that made them the most suitable for his ivory hunting expeditions. He could expect reliability, durability, and to be able to get ammunition for them locally in Africa without recourse to getting proprietary cartridges mailed to him from the maker in Britain.

If he was shooting in areas where the European ammunition was more common he could use that, and if he was in a British colonial area the. Not only was he a marksman, but one with a cool head who understood the need for perfect shot placement under all circumstances. But being good with a rifle was not the only skill set he needed. He had excellent people skills and this proved to be something that enabled him to employ the right workers and to keep them disciplined and productive.

His camp staff included porters, cooks, scouts, people who could translate and speak with different tribes, people who could help him negotiate with tribal chiefs who controlled the areas he wanted to hunt in. The negotiation process could last for a week or three as the quantity of gifts was carefully increased as the bargaining continued until an agreement was struck.

Then and only then could the harvesting of the ivory begin. The negotiation process was not always successful or peaceful however, and Bell carried a Mauser C96 pistol, and later a Colt M in. Bell needed not only to harvest ivory to finance his expeditions but also to provide meat for his between staff who trekked with him. An elephant provides a lot of meat but not enough to feed a retinue such as that.

So a standard twenty five round culling belt proved not to be quite enough. Bell had Rigby of London make him a custom fifty round belt, and when the staff at Rigby asked why he would need so many cartridges he simply told them that there were times when it paid to have them. Back then the game was exceedingly plentiful and mostly undisturbed.

Bell was often the first big game hunter to hunt in some of the areas he traversed and so his experiences were unique, and would not be likely to be duplicated nowadays: the Africa of was a very different place to what it has become today. The beginning of the Great War in brought the main part of W. Bell traveled to Britain and began training to learn how to fly and then enlisted to do his part in fighting Germany and her allies.

Bell became a reconnaissance pilot and was stationed in Tanganyika modern day Tanzania. He became respected as a bold pilot and managed to shoot down a number of enemy aircraft. In in Britain he married Kate Soareswho was the only daughter of Sir Ernest Soares and who was the heiress to his estate. Note: You can find what ultimately happened to the Trenchemer at wrecksite.

Taken prisoner at one point by the Boers, he managed to escape. When the war was settled, he stayed on and bought his way into elephant hunting, outfitting his first safari on foot into East Africa. Bell made himself into a successful elephant hunter not just because of his skill with a rifle, but also due to carefully maintained good relations with the local people in the territories through which he travelled.

At that time vast areas of Africa had not yet been penetrated by settlers or traders. For many of the native encountered, he was the first white man they had seen. He was always ready with gifts for chiefs and kings. He bought permission to hunt from them. One of his best ideas was to post a reward of a heifer for any African who gave him information about the whereabouts of elephants that led to five bulls being shot.

He soon had a flood of elephant sightings coming in and he was as good as his word, readily paying for the information. For recaltrant natives, a shooting display with his Mauser Broomhandle semi-auto pistol, during which he would often shoot stones thrown by his men out of the air easy wdm bell biography samples, he wrote, with some practice was enough to quell any ideas of attacking his camp.

Shooting buck animals for meat and hides was a large part of his regular duties as an ivory hunter. His porters, camp guards and personal men and their family could number as many as people, for whom he had to provide meat. He also would shoot for meat and hides that were used as trade goods with the villagers in the areas he passed through. He used another rifle for this purpose, a long barrelled Mannlicher in 6.

He wrote that this rifle was very accurate and probably had the largest job of all. With meat shooting and supplying hundreds of hides for sandals, donkey saddles and trade goods, this rifle was probably the busiest of all and with it he shot everything from antelope to giraffe. He was known for flying without an observer, because the observer obstructed his view when he tried to shoot down enemy planes with his rifle.

In the Balkans he once shot down a German Albatross fighter with a single round. His machine gun jammed after that first shot, but the one shot was enough. He later served in Greece and Italy, achieved the rank of Captain and was twice decorated with the Military Cross. After the War, Bell returned to ivory hunting, traveling by canoe into then uncharted African wilds after legendary herds of large elephants.

He lived unscathed through all of his adventures to enjoy the wealth he had accumulated with his rifle. Walter Bell spent his later years writing magazine article and books on his exploits in Africa. He created water color paintings and ink drawings of red stags in the Highland tussock, as well as paintings of splendidly depicted elephants on the savannah, made with an eye for anatomical detail and an appreciation of the body language of the African elephant.

He used them to illustrate his books. Scottish adventurer, soldier, and fighter pilot. This article includes a list of general referencesbut it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. September Learn how and when to remove this message.

Wdm bell biography samples

Bell's photograph for his pilot's license, Early life [ edit ]. Yukon gold and the Boer War [ edit ]. Big game hunter [ edit ]. First World War [ edit ]. Later years [ edit ]. Marriage [ edit ]. Bibliography [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The Times. A View from a Tall Hill. Countrysport Press. ISBN Retrieved 21 September Atlantic Monthly Press.

Inside safari hunting with Eric Rundgren. Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure. Da Capo Press. The Lyons Press. He'd hunted lions for the Uganda Railway and started a career as an ivory hunter.