[1][2] Will was born in Merton, Surrey, the son of Scottish physician John Kennedy Will (from Cullen, Moray) and Ella Ryng Will (from St Helens, Lancashire).
He joined the Royal Flying Corps that November and earned his pilot's certificate in England in June 1916.
According to Nigel McCrery, who wrote the book Into Touch: Rugby Internationals Killed in the Great War, on the morning of 25 March 1917, Will took off from Le Hameau in a Nieuport 17 A6751 in a five-plane escort mission, and he and Lieutenant Christopher Guy Gilbert (aka the Dorset Flyer) never made it back.
He was buried with a cross made from a broken propeller:[2] "Round the propeller-hub is painted '2nd Lt J G Will RFC'.
He was the wing-three quarter known before the war as 'the flying Scot' ... the grave must have been made by Boche airmen – a curiously chivalrous act, for they can hardly have thought it likely that we would advance far enough to see it.Will's remains were not reburied.