Bill served in the British Merchant Navy from 1939 to 1944. He spent all six of those years in convoy duty supplying Great Britain with munitions and scarce food items while dodging the ever present threat of German U-boats which took a terrible toll on British shipping during the war. Many years later he said that entering the River Clyde in Scotland upon each return home was "was like being welcomed back into my mother's arms." His ashes were spread in a tranquil section of that river near Glasgow upon his death in 2008.