Willis Algernon

Willis joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1904 and went on to serve in World War I and then actions against the Bolsheviks in the Baltic from 1918 to 1919. In the Second World War he was appointed as Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, first under Sir Dudley Pound and then in 1940. under Sir Andrew Cunningham, He participated in various Fleet operations in the Mediterranean, including the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, and the attack on Italian Fleet at Taranto in October 1940.

In 1941 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief South Atlantic with acting rank of Vice-Admiral and was responsible for convoys passing through to the Middle East and for operations against enemy vessels. Then in February 1942 he transferred to HMS Resolution as Vice-Admiral commanding 3rd Battle Squadron and Second in command Eastern Fleet under Admiral Sir James Somerville. This Fleet was assigned the duty of protecting communications in the Indian Ocean.

In March 1943 he was Flag Officer commanding Force H, the force which covered North African Operations and then the invasion of Italy. In October 1943 he became Commander-in-Chief, Levant after the Armistice with Italy when Force H dispersed. As Commander-in-Chief Levant he conducted the Dodecanese Campaign of Autumn 1943 and attended the Cairo Conference. He returned to the UK in 1944 and became Second Sea Lord on the Board of Admiralty and held this appointment until February 1946 when he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in 1948. He retired in 1950. It was widely believed he was not made First Sea Lord because his wife was Prime Minister Clement Attlee's sister-in-law and Attlee felt such an appointment could look like nepotism. He spent his last years in Petersfield in Hampshire.

According to Burke's Landed Gentry 1952, under the entry 'Willis of Monk's Barn', Willis was a descendant of Christopher Willis or Willes, b. c. 1527, the nephew of William Willes, Dean of Middleham, Yorkshire. His parents were Herbert Bourdillon Willis and his wife Edith Florence, the daughter of John Alldin Moore, of Hampstead, barrister-at-law. He married, on September 7, 1916, Olive Christine, the daughter of Henry Edward Millar, of Heathdown, Hampstead. They had two daughters.