He was adept at keeping his plane out of the enemy's firing angle, and if provoked he was skilled enough to send the German and Austrian pilots into retreat when he turned on them.

After the United States joined the war, Haviland became executive officer of a naval air station at Dunkirk, France, with one month of special duty in the 13th Squadron RNAS flying a Sopwith Camel single-seater biplane.

In July, 1918, Lt. Haviland was reassigned to command the naval air station (263ª Squadriglia) near the village of Porto Corsini in Italy and train pilots there.

[1][2][4][5] The idea was inspired by experiments in 1910 when stunt aviator Eugene Ely launched a Curtiss Model D (non-military) biplane off of a custom platform built onto the United States Cruiser USS Birmingham.

Haviland's idea, which he had proposed to Captain Nathan C. Twining on the USS Texas (BB-35), was to build a 40-foot-long (12 m), 12-foot-wide (3.7 m) runway of timbers lashed together on the Number 2 guns of the battleship's forward deck.

His Sopwith Camel biplane would then be winched down on the runway and its wheels held by a bridle to be released at Haviland's command, after the plane's propeller had sufficient speed for takeoff.

"Haviland climbed into the cockpit and revved and raced the plane's motor until it seemed to the nearby sailors that the prop blast and vibration would tear the fuselage apart.

[7] On 18 February 1944 Captain Willis B. Haviland was appointed the role officially by the Bureau of Personnel, which he held until 1 September 1944 when his superior officers, impressed by his efficient management of the facility, asked him to relinquish command for a special assignment in the Central Pacific War Zone.

Pilots under his command at Porto Corsini, Italy won sixteen Navy Crosses and one Congressional Medal of Honor, the latter being Ensign Charles Hammann.