Bill Edmonson was born in 1927 in the United States to Irish immigrant parents. He worked as a social worker and yearned to be an artist. In World War II he volunteered to fight the Nazis and after the war he moved to France where he worked as a sculptor. There he found friends from Palestine who convinced him to work for Aliya Bet.
He moved to Israel to participate more fully in the struggle. After a number of battles he was killed on July 9, 1948 by a bullet to the head on the road to Jerusalem. He was originally buried in the Christian cemetery in Jaffa and then, on April 16, 1951, reinterred in the Christian Cemetery in Haifa.
