W . D . M . Bell Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell ( 1880 – 1954 ) , known as Karamojo Bell , was a Scottish adventurer , big game hunter in East Africa , soldier , decorated pilot , sailor , writer , and painter . Bell was an advocate of the importance of shooting accuracy , at a time when maximum firepower was the most common technique . He improved his shooting skills by careful dissection and study of the anatomy of the skulls of the elephants he shot . He even perfected the clean shooting of elephants from the extremely difficult position of being diagonally behind the target ; this shot became known as the Bell Shot . Although chiefly known for his exploits in Africa , Bell also travelled to North America and New Zealand , sailed windjammer s , and saw service in southern Europe during World War I . Early life . Bell was born into a wealthy family of Scottish and Manx ancestry , on the family ' s estate near Clifton Hall , Edinburgh in 1880 . Walter was the second - youngest of 10 children . His mother died when he was 2 years old and his father died when he was 6 . He was brought up by his elder brothers but ran away from several schools , and he once hit his school captain over the head with a cricket bat . At the age of 13 he went to sea , and in 1897 , at the age of 16 , he hunted lions for the Uganda Railway using a single - shot rifle chambered in . 303 British . Yukon gold and the Boer War . Bell convinced his family to back him for a trip to Africa , where he obtained a job shooting man - eating lions for the Uganda Railway at the age of 16 . Afterward , Bell travelled to North America , where he spent a short time panning for gold in the Yukon gold rush and earned a living by shooting game to supply Dawson City with meat . His partner cheated him of his earnings , and so joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles during the Boer War in order to return to Africa . Bell was captured when his horse was shot from under him , but he escaped and managed to get back to British lines . Big game hunter . After the war ended in 1902 , Bell remained in Africa and became a professional elephant hunter . Over sixteen years spent in Africa , he hunted in Uganda , the Sudan , Ethiopia , Central Africa and West Africa . He became known as “ Karamojo ” Bell ( Sometimes spelt " Karamoja " ) because of his safaris through this remote wilderness area in North Eastern Uganda . Bell shot 1 , 011 elephants during his career ; all of them bulls apart from 28 cows . He was noted for using high speed , smaller calibre bullets rather than the slow speed , larger calibre bullets that were popular with other big game hunters . Around 800 of his kills were made with Rigby rifles manufactured on the Mauser action in . 275 Rigby ( Also known as the 7x57mm Mauser , as the . 275 was a " Rigby trademark " ) calibre . He also used a Mannlicher - Schoenauer 6 . 5x54mm carbine , and a Lee Enfield sporting rifle in . 303 British . He insisted on using military Full Metal Jacket bullets weighing from approx 170 to 200 grains , rather than the 400 + grain bullets popular at the time Bell refused to use soft point bullets under any circumstances . The reason for his use of only Full Metal Jacket projectiles , is that on large animals like elephant and African buffalo a soft point hunting bullet does not have the penetration to reach the vital organs or brain . Bell used the brain shot extensively in order to put the elephants down quickly . He discovered that such quick kills did not alarm the rest of the herd and he could kill more bulls before the animals began to flee . World War I . At the outbreak of World War I , he was hunting in the Congo and immediately headed back to England and enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps , becoming a pilot in Tanganyika ( present day Tanzania ) . It is reputed that in the early days he sometimes flew without an observer so that he could take pot - shots at enemy aircraft with his hunting rifle . Later , he became a Flight Commander in Europe flying Bristol fighters . Bell was one of the first to score an air victory in his squadron . He shot an Albatross down with a single shot when his machine gun jammed , and once shot an aircraft down with a machine gun that did not have its sights aligned with the bore . Bell was decorated with the Military Cross by General Smuts and received a bar to his MC for service in Greece and France . He finished the war with the rank of Captain . Later years . His safaris continued into the early 1920s , garnering a large fortune from the ivory he collected . Bell retired to a 1 , 000 acre highland estate at at Garve in Ross - shire , Scotland , named " Corriemollie " , with his wife Kate , whom he had married at the end of World War I . He wrote three books about his exploits in Africa , illustrated with his own sketches and paintings , and several articles about aspects of shooting and firearms . Bell and his wife spent their later years sailing his racing yacht " Trenchmere " competitively . He also hunted red stags in the Scottish hills and became a proponent of the . 220 Swift calibre , writing of its superior effect on deer due to its high velocity bullet . Bell died 30 June 1954 .