Who was Bill Underwood
The five foot, 2 inches, gentle looking man called the “Human Atomic Bomb”- “Mighty Atom” – “Little Giant Killer” as a 12 year old boy in 1907 Liverpool England, made after school pocket money selling programmes at the Vaudeville Pavilion theatre. Along with great performances by the likes of the legendary Houdini, Buffalo Bill Cody and Charlie Chaplin, periodically Japanese Jiu-Jitsu experts would demonstrate their incredible abilities on the local stage. Crowds would be amazed while watching small Japanese men nightly throwing big muscle-men around the stage like rag dolls. Between acts backstage Bill developed a friendship with world famous Jiu-Jitsu experts Tara Maki and Yukio Tani and they began to teach him in a short period of time some of the basic techniques of their craft. Unbeknown to anyone, Bill was a prodigy in the making. With limited exposure to his instructors he began to develop and build immediately upon some of the techniques he had learned and evolved them into what would become a unique, improved system.
A couple of years later, he immigrated to Canada, and in 1914 went overseas with the Grenadier Guards of the Royal Montreal Regiment. He continued to develop his fighting system and was able to use it to extricate himself from numerous life and death situations during the war. In full hand-to-hand fighting mode he escaped the Germans at Ypres on foot, following the first gas attack in April, 1915. The next year, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot and learned gunnery from Canada's Billy Bishop, and he became friends with Roy Brown.
In 1940, at the beginning of WWII, Bill joined Toronto's Queens Own Rifle Reserve and his war effort was focused on teaching the Allied Special Armed forces his system of hand-to-hand combat which he called "Combato", designed to provide a solution to the threat of Japanese wartime Judo. He began with training men in the Canadian Army, Navy, and Air Force at training camps throughout the country. Quickly news spread to the south and requests began to come from the United States and his training of their special forces began. Among many engagements, Bill demonstrated at U.S.O. shows and at the famous Stage Door Canteen. After a visit to the Pentagon some of his activities became classified but it became clear that he provided instruction to the American Rangers and select intelligence groups such as the F.B.I.
Years after WWII Bill disclosed that he also had instructed at Top Secret, Allied Forces STS (Special Training School) 103, unofficially known as “Camp X”, located in Oshawa, Canada. In personal conversations with Lynn Philip Hodgson, the foremost author on the subject with 3 books to his credit (“Inside Camp X”, “Camp X, Silver Dagger”, Camp X Final Battle”) he noted that although still much of the original documentation on him a Camp X was either destroyed or remains classified, not only was it possible that Mr. Underwood was there but that he was… “Certain that he had seen his name in print in relation to the camp somewhere throughout his research which has spanned 25 years. The fact that Mr. Underwood was already involved in Allied Special Forces training and that he was a Toronto resident within 1 hour’s drive of the camp, by reason alone, makes very likely candidate. While in this environment he would have been engaged in the training of Allied Special Agents from all over the world representing intelligence groups such as the British/North American “B.S.C.” (British Security Co-ordination), the British “S.O.E.” (Special Operations Executive – a branch of the British MI-6), the British “S.I.S.” (Secret Intelligence Service) and the American “O.S.S.” (Office of Strategic Services – the forerunner of the C.I.A.) All staff at the camp, regardless of rank, position or role received mandatory training in hand-to-hand combat in order to defend themselves and the camp in case of enemy attack or infiltration.
After the War in 1945 Mr. Underwood received his first invitation to demonstrate his skills for civilian law enforcement. The Butler, New Jersey Police Force retained him for training, the first of such opportunities which would come from law enforcement and security agencies throughout North America. To meet these requests he modified his Combato system by removing the techniques that inflicted intentional death and permanent injury. Defendo was born. Bill intended it to be a defensive form of self-protection where the average person could be qualified to defend himself against any method of attack, with or without weapons, turning the attacker into the victim.
A few of the things that law enforcement officials like about this training are: the complete and absolute control of the aggressor, whether he is armed or not; the immediate ending of a contest to see who is the better man, by being able to restrain the wanted man under threat of further punishment, eliminating all rough-house tactics; the ability to subdue a prisoner without hospitalizing him or causing bodily harm; being able to put prisoners in and out of police vehicles without much effort; handling big, heavy, helpless inebriates without much stress or strain on the Constable; no evidence in Court next morning, such as bandages and broken limbs, although necessary control has been applied to the prisoner.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Bill became a sort of media darling and had many guest appearances on well established TV shows such as “The Johnny Carson Show”, “Real People”, “The John Davidson Show”, “The Mike Douglas Show”, “Bob McLean”, “That’s Incredible”, “The Alan Hamel Show”, “100 Huntley Street and “700 Club” which were aired throughout Canada and the United States. Bill’s life story was also included in a documentary called, “The Butterfly Years” about the fascinating lives of some very interesting senior citizens. Bill’s portion received such rave reviews that it was turned into a short film entitled; “Don’t Mess with Bill” produced by Pen Densham and John Watson’s, Insight Productions out of Los Angeles, which was nominated for an Oscar in 53 rd Academy Awards in 1980.