William Davis (Royal Navy officer)

Admiral Sir William Wellclose Davis GCB DSO (11 October 1901 – 29 October 1987) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Vice Chief of the Naval Staff.

Naval career
Educated at Summer Fields School in Oxford, the Royal Naval College at Osborne and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Davis joined the Royal Navy in 1917 towards the end of World War I.

He also served in World War II initially as Executive Officer on the battlecruiser HMS Hood (51) and then, from 1940, as Deputy Director of Plans at the Admiralty and then, from 1943, as Commander of the cruiser HMS Mauritius in which capacity he was involved in the Sicily landings and the Normandy landings.

After the War he was made Director of Underwater Weapons at the Admiralty and then, from 1948, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet. He became Naval Secretary in 1950 and Flag Officer, Second in Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1952. He went on to be Vice Chief of the Naval Staff in 1954 and Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet and Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Atlantic Area in 1958. He was First and Principal Naval Aide-de-camp to the Queen from 1959 to 1960. He retired in 1960.

Family
In 1934 he married Gertrude Elizabeth Phipps; they went on to have two sons and two daughters.