Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II was famously involved in the war effort during the second world war. Back then she was still a Princess, but don’t let that fool you. Between 1940-1945, the now Queen amassed 213 confirmed kills as a sniper placing her in an elite class of marksmen. She has never publically spoken about her covert operations.
Winston Curchill secretly commisioned her to take out top luitenants and officers from the AXIS powers. Her skills with a rifle were already reaching legendary proportion, her deadly efficiency in WWII placed her in a category of her own. “She was such a good shot, that she would alternate between putting a bullet in the left eye of one target and then then right eye of the next target”, said her spotter in an unpublished interview.
To put her feats in perspective Chris Kyle, whom the movie “American Sniper” was based, had 160 confirmed kills. Only Russian Sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko had more kills, with 300. Fortunately the two woman never crossed each other’s path. Her rifle of choice was the Lee-Enfield No. 4 with a 3.5X telescopic sight. Compared to todays sights, her achievements are even more impressive with the limited technology rifles of the day had.
It is unclear if we’ll ever hear the Queen talk about her time as a sniper on the record, but the rest of us can appreciate what she did for not only England, but for the whole World.
*Update. Sadly Queen Elizabeth passed away today 9/8/22, so we will never get a first hand account of her exploits. Rest in peace 🙏
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