Informal portrait of NX14879 Corporal (Cpl) James Thomas (Jim) Willis, A Company, 2/13th ...

Informal portrait of NX14879 Corporal (Cpl) James Thomas (Jim) Willis, A Company, 2/13th Battalion, of Moree, NSW. Cpl Willis enlisted on 14 May 1940 and trained at Ingleburn near Sydney until August when the battalion marched to a new camp at Bathurst. In October they travelled by train to Darling Harbour and were ferried out to the Queen Mary. They sailed the next day for Bombay and then on to el Kantara at the mid point of the Suez Canal. There they boarded a train and travelled over the Sinai Desert to camp Kilo 89 near Gaza, arriving in late November. Cpl Willis was killed in action on 4 April 1941 at Er Reijima, in an action which preceded the withdrawal of Allied troops to Tobruk. Cpl Willis' section had been posted near the road at the bottom of the pass where they were exposed to arriving tanks. To protect his men, he told them to try to escape while he hid in some nearby rocks with a bren gun. Jim Willis was killed having sacrificed his life for his men. The other members of his Section (Bren gun) crew with either killed, wounded or taken prisoner by Rommel's forces.