Promoted to Major General and Chief, National Guard Bureau in 1940. He served as Chief for the duration of the Second World War and immediately after the war during the initial reorganization of the National Guard.

PASADENA, California, May 30, 1953 – Major General John F. Williams, Chief of the National Guard with headquarters in Washington, D.C., during World War II, died of cancer in a hospital here yesterday.  He was 66 years old.

General Williams, who organized the first mechanized regiment in the Army, was also a veteran of World War I.  He retired in 1946 and had been living at Laguna since then.

During his career he had served as Colonel of the 128th Field Artillery in the Missouri National Guard.  He was graduated fro the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1911 and later worked as a reporter on the Kansas City Star and was editor of the Joplin, Missouri, News-Herald.

The General, a widower, leaves two daughters, Mrs. Alexander H. Gaal of San Marino, California, and Mrs. James M. Clark of Cincinnati, and two stepsons, Colonel M. W. Caffee of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Master Sergeant W. K. Caffee, now serving with the Army in Newfoundland.

NOTE: His wife was the former sister-in-law of Arthur Gill Chaffee, Lieutenant, United States Navy.

WILLIAMS, JOHN FRANCIS
MAJ GEN USA
DATE OF BIRTH: 01/07/1887
DATE OF DEATH: 05/29/1953
BURIED AT: SECTION 3  SITE 1874
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

WILLIAMS, MARY WAY W/O JOHN F
DATE OF BIRTH: 11/10/1889
DATE OF DEATH: 09/02/1952
BURIED AT: SECTION 3  SITE 1872-B R
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY 
 
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