Murray High School Class of 1966   •   St. Paul Minnesota   •   www.murraypilots1966.org  •  info@murraypilots1966.org

7/2/1948 – missing since 3/1/1969

from Mary Underhill and Sarah Underhill Holm, Bill’s sisters (2016):

In high school Bill played football and was on the wrestling team. He was tall and slim and loved the outdoors. He lifted weights and was an avid fisherman. He spent summers at Itasca, exploring, lifeguarding, finding adventure. In 1969, he was a student at the U of M, working, and living at home with his parents and sisters.

Life wasn't always easy for Bill.

In March 1969, he disappeared. He was 21. And we know little more now then we did then – that he’d gone to a party with friends, drank some, talked some, perhaps about Vietnam and his upcoming physical for the draft – and that he left the party abruptly, into the night, never to be seen again. 

Maybe he felt afraid, maybe brave, maybe he didn’t know what he felt or where to turn. Maybe he was broken-hearted, maybe he was in trouble. He had his life ahead of him – maybe the future would have meant his being drafted and serving in Vietnam. Maybe he would have come home, maybe not. It was a time in America not unlike these days, nearly 50 years later. We’ve imagined the worst in all its many forms.

Somewhere his bones lie. We continue to want to find him, to bury his bones in earth, marked with flowers, and to somehow in someway put his spirit to rest in a peaceful place.

We are grateful to you, the class of ’66, who knew him – vaguely or dearly – and who have shared your memories of him with us. Please continue to do so. And we will continue to look for him and love him and remain indebted for every bit of information – memory, suspicion, speculation, possibility, and detail – we are offered. 

Thank you.