William (Bill) joined the Army underage as a 15 year old boy, on 22nd March 1937, citing year of birth as 1919 rather than 1921, which still shows on his service record. His initial training was at Catterick Camp. He was deployed to Hong Kong on 22nd October 1938.

His parents and sister lived in Bournemouth. His father was a soldier before and during World War 1. He was always known as "Bill".

Bill was deployed in the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941, as a signaller on Hong Kong Island. He became a POW on 25th December 1941 and was incarcerated at Shamshuipo POW camp from 1st January 1942 to 27th September 1942.

He was put on the Lisbon Maru, which was sunk on 2nd October. He escaped from Hold 2 and was a strong swimmer. He passed out in the water and came to being given CPR by a Japanese sailor on the deck of a Japanese ship.

He was taken with other survivors to Shanghai Docks, but was one of the few deemed too ill to be transported by ship to Japan. He was sent to Woosung Prison Camp in Shanghai from 6th October 1942 to 19th December 1942. Woosung was subsequently closed and he was relocated to Kiangwan POW Camp in Shanghai from 19th December 1942 to 9th May 1945.

At Woosung he was in company with a friend William "Jim" Newbold, a Lisbon Maru survivor, also of the Royal Signals captured in Hong Kong, with whom he shared a blanket. Jim was also very ill and wanted to die, and did pass away in Woosung POW Camp (information from post war POW repatriation letter).

Woosung and Kiangwan were POW camps, comprising a majority of American POWs from Wake Island and latterly Peking, as well as an handful of Lisbon Maru survivors, who were too ill to travel by ship to Japan. Torture and slave labour were prevalent and Bill suffered illness, beating and torture and bore a significant circular scar on his cheek, where a cigarette had been constantly applied to burn a hole through into his mouth.

On 9th May 1945 he was moved to Feng Tai POW Camp in Peking arriving 19th May 1945, where he remained until 19th June 1945 before onward shipping to Hakodate 2 POW Camp in Hokkaido, Northern Japan, to be used as slave labour in coal mines. He remained at Hakodate 2 Camp until 16th September 1945, by then suffering from severe malnutrition (weighing 5 stone), Beri Beri and 90 day blindness.

He was repatriated by ship from Japan to Honolulu, and thence on to San Francisco, overland to New York, and returned on the Queen Mary arriving in Southampton on 18th November 1945. From there he was demobbed and returned home to Bournemouth.

In 1946, he joined the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary as a constable and married his childhood sweetheart Eve, also from Bournemouth, who was a WAAF and radar plotter at various frontline fighter and bomber stations. She had previously got engaged to a Canadian Navigator in heavy bombers whilst he was a POW, but that engagement fell through. He became aware of that, via correspondence late in the war, whilst a POW.

They had two children, Nigel born in 1949 and Robert in 1955. They moved with the police service in Hampshire to Fleet, Winchester, Aldershot and Havant and he rose through the ranks to become a police inspector in Havant.

Bill died aged 43 in 1964 of an heart attack and subsequent post mortem indicated unexpected organ damage and ageing attributable to his suffering as a POW.