VALE
VADM Sir James Willis KBE AO RAN Retd
Chief of the Naval Staff

VADM Sir James (Guido) Willis KBE, AO, RAN (Rtd), former Chief of the Naval Staff, passed away in Adelaide late last month.

Born in 1923 at Learmonth in Victoria he was christened Guido James but was always known as Jim in the Navy.

He entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1937. (His younger brother Alan would later join the Navy and attain the rank of Rear Admiral, and their younger half brother, Richard, would also serve in the postwar RAN as a Surgeon Lieutenant Commander.)

Jim Willis graduated in 1940 and was sent as a MIDN to join the cruiser HMAS Canberra.

This was the start of his sea-going career, in which he would serve in some sixteen ships, some more than once.

In WWII he served in Australian waters, the Indian Ocean including the Burma campaign, the Mediterranean, the UK, the Pacific and Borneo. When the war ended he was a 21 year old Lieutenant, the Second in Command of the frigate HMAS Barcoo.

In March of 1947 Jim Willis was sent back to the UK to undertake specialist Navigation and Fighter Direction training, topping the course and achieving a record mark of 100 percent in astronomical navigation. He was posted to HMAS Warramunga and sent as the Navigator to the Korean War, 1950 to 1951.

He was to command the corvette Latrobe, frigates Quiberon and Yarra, destroyers Tobruk and Vampire and the carrier Melbourne.

In 1956 Jim Willis was promoted Commander, to Captain in 1962 and Rear Admiral in 1973.

He became Fleet Commander in 1978 to 1979 and promoted to Vice Admiral, Chief of the Naval Staff on April 21, 1979.

In 1981 VADM Willis was appointed a Knight Commander in the Order of the British Empire for service to the RAN. He was the last Chief of the Naval Staff to be honoured this way.

Writing to ADM Mike Hudson last year he said: “I’m particularly concerned that the wonderful happiness that Marjorie brought into my life should be recognised, and the splendid way in which she supported me in my service and private life. In recent years she has looked after me and my ill-health in a way I have had no right to expect. It has imposed an enormous strain on her and she has endured it in the most caring way. I don’t know that she would want me to say this, but it is a fact.”- ADM Mike Hudson

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