Williams served in a succession of sea and shore billets throughout the 19th century: the former in USS Essex, Columbia, Yankee, Buffalo, Panther, Richmond, and Monongahela; the latter at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island.
In the years immediately preceding World War I, Williams served as ordnance officer in Montana (Armored Cruiser No.
He admired the Czechoslovak Legion's holding Kazan against the Bolshevik army, and gave a report about it to T. G. Masaryk in America in August 1918.
[1] Williams — by that time a captain — was awarded the Navy Cross for "distinguished service in the line of his profession" while commanding Pueblo during World War I, as the armored cruiser engaged in the "important, exacting, and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines."
After detachment from New Mexico, Williams became the senior member of the Pacific Coast section of the Board of Inspection and Survey.