USS Willis (DE–395) was an of the United States Navy.
Namesake
Walter Michael Willis was born on 14 January 1917 at Minneapolis, Minnesota. He enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve as a seaman 2nd class at Minneapolis. He received an appointment as reserve aviation cadet on 22 December 1939. Six days later, he reported to Pensacola Naval Air Station for flight instruction and, on 14 August 1940, emerged with his aviator's wings.
Commissioned an Ensign on 10 September, he joined Bombing Squadron 6 (VB-6, based on the and flew Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers until early in December 1941. On the morning of 7 December, as Enterprise was returning from Wake Island to Hawaii, the carrier sent up a flight of SBD's to scout the water ahead. Willis took off in one of these bombers for what was intended to be a routine flight to Ford Island, the naval air station at Pearl Harbor. However they arrived almost simultaneously with the start of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. In the ensuing aerial melee, Willis and his gunner were among the Americans shot down. An eye-witness account from Norman Kleiss describes an argument in the Enterprise ready room three days earlier between Willis, who had unusually good vision, and another officer, with Willis insisting he had sighted ships during a just-completed patrol flight; the other officer stopped Willis from reporting the sighting to then-VADM William Halsey Jr.
Operational history
Willis (DE-395) was laid down on 17 July 1943 at Houston, Texas, by Brown Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 14 September 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Marie E. Willis, the mother of the late Ens. Willis; and commissioned on 10 December 1943. Leaving the shipyard, Willis'''s steering gear failed, and she ran aground almost immediately in the shipyard channel.
After fitting-out at Houston and loading ammunition at the San Jacinto Ordnance Depot, Willis departed Galveston, Texas, on 5 January 1944 in company with bound for the British West Indies and reached Bermuda on the 10th.
Following shakedown, Willis departed Bermuda on 3 February-in company with Kretchmer and and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 6th. The destroyer escort underwent post-shakedown availability in the navy yard there over the ensuing week and sailed on 15 February for the Chesapeake Bay, escorting the merchantman to Hampton Roads where she arrived the next day.
Two days later, Willis then proceeded-in company with to Staten Island, New York, and, upon arrival, reported for duty to Commander, Escort Division (CortDiv) 51. Subsequently, Willis joined Task Group (TG) 21.11 at Hampton Roads on 26 February, the hunter-killer group formed around the escort carrier .
Convoy duty
That day, the task group put to sea for operations in the Central Atlantic that took its ships first to Casablanca-visited from 18 to 22 March-and then to the British West Indies in mid-April. Besides Bogue and Willis, the group was composed of , , , and . They scored their first success on 13 March when Hobson teamed with Haverfield, planes from Bogue's Composite Squadron (VC) 95, , and British aircraft to sink U-575.Willis continued to operate in Bogue's screen into the summer, calling at Casablanca for a second time from 29 May to 2 June, before TG 22.2 moved to Bermuda. On 24 June, southwest of the Azores, TG 22.2 destroyed another Axis submersible when planes of Bogue's VC-69 sank the Japanese submarine I-52. The task group completed that stint of hunter-killer operations on 30 June when it arrived at Port Royal Bay, Bermuda. Willis departed Bermuda on 1 July and proceeded to Hampton Roads, where TG 22.2 was dissolved upon its arrival there on the 3rd.
The destroyer escort then underwent repairs at Bayonne, New Jersey, from 4 to 14 July, after which time she joined CortDiv 51 for a period of refresher training out of Casco Bay, Maine. Proceeding back to Hampton Roads upon completion of those training evolutions, Willis moored at the Naval Operating Base (NOB), Norfolk, Va., on 22 July.
The next day, the destroyer escort sailed for Bermuda, again as a unit of TG 22.3 and screening Bogue. Other ships in the escort carrier's screen included Haverfield (with Commander, CortDiv 51 embarked) Swenning, Janssen, and . The group conducted antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training exercises and gunnery drills en route to Bermuda and arrived there on 29 July.Bogue and her escorts resumed hunter-killer operations on 2 August. Four days later, Willis obtained a sonar contact at 1353 and fired a full "hedgehog" pattern which produced no positive results. A little over a week later, the ship participated in a futile search for a lost plane from Bogue.