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Bill with several friends in Japan, late 1945/46.

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Many Japanese cities had been leveled by American bombs and subsequent fires.

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His basic training completed, Bill Underwood was sent to the South Pacific, but appears to have arrived after major combat operations had ended. He became part of the Occupation of Japan.

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Bill is shown here 2nd from top left. He and a couple of the other high schoolers appear to have been in ROTC.

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Bill had these images early in his scrapbook. Two school productions, and a photo with his younger brother.

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Bill was born January 17, 1926 in Cincinnati, OH to the late Harold William Underwood and Nancy Taylor Underwood Clarke. He went into the US Army a few months after graduation. Assigned to a heavy weapons unit, he trained on the 75mm Recoiless Rifle, a type of mobile rocket launcher.

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Bill received his draft notice before he graduated high school in Spring of 1944.

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When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, Bill Underwood was a sophomore attending North Springs High School near Atlanta.