Wilbur Jones Compositions, L.L.C. - Wilbur D. Jones, Jr.

Wilbur D. Jones, Jr.

At British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's
Cabinet War Rooms, London. From here he directed government during the battle of Britain and Blitz

At 36th Infantry Division Memorial, San Pietro, Italy. Made famous by John Huston documentary. - 2007

WILBUR D. JONES, JR., is a nationally known, award-winning author and military historian in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Doing business as Wilbur Jones Compositions, L.L.C., he writes, lectures, and consults on history and national defense, serves as a media source, and leads worldwide tours of World War II battlefields and sites.

Jones is a retired Navy captain, former assistant and advance representative to President Gerald Ford, and served the Department of Defense for nearly 41 years, the last 12 as a professor and associate dean at the Defense Acquisition University. He is a native of Wilmington to where he returned to live in 1997, and is a University of North Carolina history graduate (1955).

He has authored 17 books. Since 1997 they are (reviews and endorsements are noted under this website's Book Titles:

Football! Navy! War!: How Military "Lend-Lease" Players Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II
The Journey Continues: The World War II Home Front *, the natural sequel to
A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs of a Wartime Boomtown *;
Forget That You Have Been Hitler Soldiers: A Youth's Service to the Reich, with Hermann O. Pfrengle;
Hawaii Goes to War: The Aftermath of Pearl Harbor, with Carroll Robbins Jones;
Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War, with Franz A. P. Frisch;
Arming the Eagle: A History of U.S. Weapons Acquisition Since 1775;
Gyrene: The World War II United States Marine **; and
Giants in the Cornfield: The 27th Indiana Infantry.

* Winners (2005 and 2003) of statewide history book awards from the North Carolina Society of Historians. The Journey Continues won the 2006 Clarendon Award of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society as the best N. C. Regional history book.

** Gyrene was used as a "technical reference manual" in 2007 to train actors in Australia for filming The Pacific, the Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks Dreamworks HBO mini-series production, The Pacific, about WWII Marines.

See Awards and Recognition section for Jones' recent awards for preserving history and community service.

World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition:

As co-founder in 2000 and chairman of the volunteer Coalition, a 501(c)(3) corporation whose mission is to identify, preserve, and interpret the rich North Carolina WWII legacy, he has been at the forefront of state historical preservation efforts. He spearheaded successful projects to have Wilmington proclaimed as "America's World War II City" and the WWII Hannah Block Historic USO renovation and restoration as a home front museum, both culminated in 2008.

Military History Lectures:

Jones' lectures and presentations on military history have ranged from on board the Queen Mary 2 on her maiden eastbound voyage to Southampton and the Clipper Adventurer cruise ship in the Mediterranean, to the National Archives, C-SPAN Book TV, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and National Iwo Jima Symposium and Reunion.

WWII Battlefield Tours:

As tour leader/director or historian, he leads tours and cruises of WWII battlefields and sites in the Pacific, Europe, Mediterranean, and North Carolina. They include Tarawa (Republic of Kiribati, former Gilbert Islands); Battle of the Bulge to Hitler's Eagles Nest (Paris to Munich, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany); Italian Campaign (Malta, Sicily, Italy); Peleliu (the Palaus); Normandy, London and area; Iwo Jima; and Okinawa. See WWII Battlefield Tours [hyperlink] for his 2009 schedule.

Lectures, Public Appearances, Book Signings, and Media Source:

Jones has given more than 750 lectures, media interviews, local government meeting agenda presentations, book signings, and other public appearances providing educational information to in-house audiences of approximately 10,000. He is a frequent expert and informational interviewee and source for national and regional TV and AM-FM radio, and a frequent correspondent and reference source for regional print media including the Wilmington Star-News, for whom he began writing as a student in 1950 and still does.

Other Civic Activities Related to Profession:

Secretary and principal organizer of the Wilmington Kitty Hawk Concept Team which has worked since 2006 to bring the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) to Wilmington as a museum ship.
Member, Board of Directors, Museum of the Marine, Jacksonville, N. C.;
U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre's (7th District, N. C.) congressional district coordinator for the Library of Congress Veterans History project;
Former Chairman, Friends of the Battleship North Carolina Memorial;
Former member, New Hanover County Public Library Advisory Board;
Member, 150th Anniversary (2008) Committee of St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, where he is writing the church history and led the establishment of a mini-museum History Corner.

His Passions:

Jones enjoys anything WWII, reading, physical fitness at the Wilmington Athletic Club, civic involvement, following the North Carolina Tar Heels, and ACC basketball. He is a retired professional baseball umpire and basketball referee at the NCAA Division I level through high school and youth leagues. In 1983 and 1985 he umpired the Senior League World Series (15-year old division of Little League). At UNC he lettered in soccer and lacrosse and was president of the Monogram Club of letter winners.

Memberships and family:

His memberships include the Wilmington (Downtown) Rotary Club (past director); Salvation Army Advisory Board (past); numerous veterans, military, and history organizations; Wilmington Executives Club (past president); and St. Andrews-Covenant (charter member, 1944).

He and Carroll Robbins Jones of Los Angeles have been married 50 years (August 2009) and have three children: Patricia Jones Jacobson, in Michigan; David, a marketeer in Raleigh; and Andrew, a sports journalist in Raleigh. They raised their only grandchild, Carrie Jones Vaughan, a Raleigh third-grade teacher.

Well Grounded in National Defense and Military Affairs

With local woman and Madame Yuki Tojo, granddaughter of Japan's wartime premier, General Hideki Tojo - Peleliu, Palaus. - 1999

Wilbur Jones has possessed a lifelong burning interest in military affairs and history and service to country and community. Seven years old when the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, he grew up in Wilmington playing war games and supporting the war effort as a child. He writes of his indelible experiences in two award-winning books on wartime Wilmington, A Sentimental Journey and The Journey Continues.

Commissioned through officer candidate school in 1956, he served a both a Regular Navy and Ready Reserve officer for the next 28 years, retiring in 1984 after spending half that time on active duty. He achieved the rank of captain and commanded two Reserve units, including the Atlantic Fleet Naval Beach Group Reserve, and amphibious support unit that lands with marines in the assault waves.

He served nearly 41 consecutive years in the Department of Defense on active duty, in the Ready Reserve, and as a civilian professor and associate dean of information at the defense Acquisition University (formerly Defense Systems Management College).

"Looking at how I began, I was born to be a military historian and career armed forces officer in service to my country."