Born in Camden, Arkansas, Bill hitchhiked to El Dorado and joined the Navy a few weeks short of his eighteenth birthday, sailing overseas in January of 1944. He remembers "crossing the ocean with every hold full of bombs, oxygen, and acetylene cylinders." William spent the war one explosion away from catastrophe aboard the USS Situla (AK-140) transporting ordnance for the U.S. Army Air Forces. In the Saipan/Tinian operation, he watched Marines aim flamethrowers into caves. He also remembers Japanese suicide victims, and saw whole families "who were tied together and jumped off the cliff and floated right by our ship." Bill served through the occupation of Japan. He left the service on April 3, 1946 as a boatswain mate, second class. After the war, he worked at International Paper Company.