James Buss was born in the village of Hascombe, Surrey, on 30 August 1881, one of at least nine children of George Buss, a shepherd and agricultural labourer, and his wife Annie (née Beaver).

He joined the Royal Navy at the Boys’ training ship HMS ST VINCENT, at Haslar, on 15 February 1897, and after a short spell in the old battleship HMS RODNEY, joined the pre-dreadnought HMS PRINCE GEORGE in August 1898 followed by the Mediterranean flagship HMS RAMILLIES in January 1900. He was rated Able Seaman in March 1901. Apart from short periods in HMS ILLUSTRIOUS and HMS DEVASTATION, he remained in RAMILLIES until October 1903 when she returned to Portsmouth for refit.

After training as a Torpedoman at HMS VERNON, he joined the submarine depot ship HMS THAMES in September 1904, moving to HMS MERCURY in April 1906 where he was rated Leading Seaman in July 1906.  In May 1910 he returned to the surface fleet, serving in the battleship HMS SUPERB until May 1911, and then the cruiser HMS FURIOUS.  In May 1912 he joined the cruiser HMS MINOTAUR, flagship on the Cape of Good Hope station.

In April 1915 he returned to HMS DOLPHIN and then to HMS MAIDSTONE, the depot ship for the Eighth Submarine Flotilla based at Harwich.  It is not known which submarines he served in, but HMS E18 and E19 entered the Baltic in September 1915 reaching Reval (later renamed Tallinn) on 13 September, where they joined a growing flotilla of RN submarines supporting the Russian Baltic fleet. From August 1916 the Baltic submarines came under the administrative control of HMS E19 (Cdr Francis Cromie).

James Buss is shown on his service record to have died from pneumonia and emphysema on 20 March 1917.  He is buried at Tallinn Military Cemetery, Estonia.

He left a widow, Alice Maud (née Oakley), whom he had married in March 1906, and a son, Reginald George (b.1910), who served in the RN as an Ordnance Artificer from 1926 to 1952.