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.
Wilbur Jones Compositions
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.
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.
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.