WILBUR D. JONES, JR., is a nationally known author and military historian in Wilmington, N. C., doing business as Wilbur Jones Compositions, L.L.C. A University of North Carolina history graduate, retired navy captain, and former assistant and advance representative to President Ford, he served the Department of Defense for nearly 41 years, the last 12 as a professor and associate dean at the Defense Acquisition University. He writes, lectures, and consults on history and national defense, and leads tours of WWII battlefields and sites.

Since 1997 his books include:
(reviews and endorsements are noted in the website)*

• The latest (2005) and 16th book, 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.
  
  *All except Arming the Eagle (Department of Defense/Government Printing Office) are from White Mane Publishing Company.
  ** 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 for best North Carolina regional book.
  *** Gyrene has been used as a “reference manual” to train actors in Australia for filming The Pacific, the Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks DreamWorks HBO miniseries production about WWII Marines. (See website for Spielberg letter.)

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In 2006 Jones received a national Award of Merit for Leadership in History from the American Association for State and Local History for his two books on WWII North Carolina and his WWII preservation efforts.

In 2005 he received five statewide history awards, including the NCSH award as North Carolina Historian of the Year (East).

As founder and chairman of the volunteer WWII Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition, whose mission is to identify, preserve, and interpret North Carolina WWII history, on its behalf he received top organization awards from the Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies and the NCSH.

In 2003 and 2005 the NCSH presented him awards for newspaper articles for his numerous Wilmington Star-News op-ed pieces and coverage from Normandy during the 60th Anniversary of D-Day in 2004. As the newspaper’s military analyst, he wrote 13 page 1A columns during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. He continues to write op-ed, sports, and feature pieces for the newspaper.

In 2000 his founding and chairmanship of the 125-event, 18-month Wartime Wilmington Commemoration 1999 earned two NCSH statewide organization awards and the LCFHS organization award.

Jones’ military history lectures have ranged from onboard the Queen Mary 2 and Clipper Adventurer, to the National Archives, C-SPAN Book TV, UNC Wilmington, and National Iwo Jima Symposium and Reunion.

As tour director or historian, he leads cruises and tours of WWII battlefields and sites in the Pacific, Europe, and North Carolina. They have included the Italian Campaign (Malta, Sicily, Italy); the Palaus (Peleliu, Koror); Normandy; London and area; Iwo Jima; and Okinawa. He will lead a Battle of the Bulge-Eagle’s Nest tour to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Austria in June 2008; and another tour to London, Jersey, and Normandy in October 2008.

Jones’ other civic activities related to his profession include:

• Secretary of a concept team working to bring the carrier USS Kitty Hawk to Wilmington as a museum ship;
• Member, board of directors, Museum of the Marine, Jacksonville, N. C.;
• Rep. Mike McIntyre’s (D-NC) 7th 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 (N. C.) Public Library Advisory Board.
  

Jones’ passions are reading, physical fitness, civic involvement, following his North Carolina Tar Heel teams, and ACC basketball. He is a retired professional baseball and basketball umpire/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).

His memberships include the Wilmington Rotary Club (past director); Salvation Army Advisory Board; numerous veterans, military, and historical organizations, Wilmington Executives Club (past president); and St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church (charter member). He and Carroll Robbins Jones of Los Angeles have been married nearly 49 years and have three children: Andrew, a Raleigh sports journalist; David, a Los Angeles marketeer; Patricia Jacobson of Michigan; and raised their only grandchild, Carrie, a Raleigh third-grade school teacher.

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Well Grounded in National Defense and Military Affairs

Wilbur Jones has possessed a lifelong burning interest in military affairs and history. Seven years old when the United States entered WWII, he grew up in Wilmington playing war games and helping support the war effort on the home front.

Commissioned through officer candidate school in 1956, he served as 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, an 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 at the Defense Acquisition University (formerly Defense Systems Management College). He retired in 1996 and began a full-time career as an author and military historian.