George Willis joined the 1st Battalion, London Irish Rifles (1 LIR) in 1939 when he was 19 years of age. The battalion would soon undertake home service duties right across south-eastern England in 1940 to support the UK-end of the evacuations from Dunkirk and then go onto guard against the possibility of German invasion – the events at Graveney Marsh in September 1940 being one memorable occasion.
At the end of August 1942, George joined 1 LIR as they left Southampton for overseas service, along with the rest of 56th (London) Division, and they spent 6 months guarding the oil fields of northern Iraq before they returned to Egypt to prepare for the liberation of southern Europe. Acting as a stretcher bearer in D Company, George and his comrades were much needed during the short Sicilian campaign in July/August 1943 – including a particularly notable occasion in support of his OC, Major Sir James Henry – before the battalion journeyed onto peninsular Italy in mid-October 1943.
The next three months saw 1 LIR facing assaulting the German defensive lines north of Naples, at both Monte Camino and the Garigliano river before that day in early February 1944 when they were ordered to sail to a place called…. Anzio.
You can read about George Willis’s time with 1 LIR in the Anzio beachhead and his subsequent incarceration as a Prisoner of War in Germany at Camp Stalag IVB:
Arriving at Anzio.
Into Captivity.
Stalag IVB.
Liberation.
George Willis had grown up in a large family in the East End of London and learnt to play the pipes at a very early age and, by the time he joined the LIR, he had been a member of four different pipe bands. His direct connections with the LIR and their Pipes and Drums would span a total of more that 60 years after which he continued to support Regimental Association activities (now, in a literary manner) right up to the time of his death in 2011.
He and his son, George, co-authored a fantastic account of the history of the Pipes and Drums of the London Irish Rifles in 2006 and this continues to be updated and the latest version is now accessible in a downloadable form here (a large pdf file).
A further account of George’s time with the Pipes and Drums at the outbreak of war can also be found below:
