From a conremporary press report:
John Chancellor Willis Jr., 81, a Lieutenant Colonel who retired from the Army Signal Corps in 1966, died July 11, 2001, at a hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. He had emphysema.
Colonel Willis was a native of Arlington, Virginia, who moved to St. Petersburg from College Park last month. He was a graduate of Washington-Lee High School and attended the University of Virginia.
He served in the Pacific during World War II and in Japan after the war. He was later posted to Korea and Vietnam during the wars there. Other assignments included Panama and Indonesia. He also taught ROTC at the University of Maryland. After he retired, he was a program manager with the Army Materiel Command.
His honors included two Army Commendation medals.
Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Martha Taylor Willis of St. Petersburg; three children, Sandra Willis Donelan of St. Petersburg, John C. Willis III of Wichita and Mark T. Willis of Annapolis; a brother; four grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.
Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.
Reviewed by: Michael Howard