A Sentimental Journey is a social history of the life and culture on the Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina home front. The personal story of a burgeoning community, it is the first book covering a specific geographic area this extensively.
Books
The Journey Continues: The World War II Home Front is the natural sequel to the authorâ€s first volume on this subject, the highly acclaimed, nationally distributed book, A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs of a Wartime Boomtown, winner of the North Carolina Society of Historians 2003 Willie Parker Peace Book Award.
Hermann O. Pfrengle’s remarkable, breathtaking memoir describes the unorthodox life and travails of an adolescent German boy on the war-scarred home front. As a member of the Jungvolk organization loosely associated with the Hitler Youth, he helped construct the Siegfried Line, worked in the war effort and civilian defense, and attended high school until it was bombed.
Not coincidentally, football employs military terms associated with war, such as “aerial attack,†“blitz,†“field general,†and “trench warfare.†Beyond providing essential jargon, by necessity and choice the military linked with colleges during World War II to preserve the game and keep schools from closing, and utilized footballâ€s rugged physical, mental, and competitive conditioning to prepare men for combat, boost morale, and help win the war.
SOCIALITE. NAVY WIFE. MOTHER OF TWO. Trailblazing freelance photographer. Patricia O’Meara Robbins In 1933 at the age of 22, Pat…
Carroll Robbins Jones was seven years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She watched the attack from Waikiki with her mother, a professional photographer, and younger brother. Her father was executive officer of the USS Shaw that blew up. While her father returned to sea, the family spent the next nine months on Oahu.
Condemned to Live is an exceptionally explicit contribution to understanding the German common soldier of World War II, the private soldat. This gripping memoir of Franz A. P. Frisch, written with Wilbur D. Jones, Jr., portrays the nine-year life, culture and travails of a Panzer artilleryman who fought on five European fronts, and remained a private in rank.
Arming the Eagle is a military history of the United States presented as a series of essays, or snapshots, of chronological periods. They tell the story of how American weapons systems were researched, developed, and produced, and the notable processes, managers, leaders, and organizations involved, and how weapons from those periods were fielded in combat or to further national interests.
Jones’ book Gyrene: The World War II United States Marine, was recently used as a “technical reference manual” to help train actors in filming the Dreamworks-Spielberg-Hanks production “The Pacific,” which filmed in Australia and the South Pacific. “The Pacific” was an award winning HBO mini-series released in 2010.
Giants in the Cornfield is an extensive social and human interest study of the young men who comprised the Civil War’s tallest regiment. The wide-ranging, fast-moving, and thoroughly researched work divulges the personal life and culture of the Union Army common soldier.