WWII
A Chronicle of Soldiering
In 1975, James Jones – the American author whose novels "From Here to Eternity" and "The Thin Red Line" had made him the preeminent voice of the enlisted man in World War II – was chosen to write the text for an oversized coffee table book edited by former "Yank" magazine art director Art Weithas and featuring visual art from World War II. The book was a best seller, praised for both its images and for Jones's text, but in subsequent decades the artwork made it impossible for the book to be reproduced in its original form, and it fell out of print and was forgotten. This edition of "WWII" makes available for the first time in more than twenty years Jones's stunning text, his only extended nonfiction writing on the war that defined his generation.
Moving chronologically and thematically through the complex history of the conflict, Jones interweaves his own vivid memories of soldiering in the Pacific – from the look on a Japanese fighter pilot's face as he bombed Pearl Harbor, so close that Jones could see him smile and wave, to hitting the beach under fire in Guadalcanal – while always returning to resounding larger themes. Much of "WWII" can be read as a tribute to the commitment of American soldiers, but Jones also pulls no punches, bluntly chronicling resentment at the privilege of the officers, questionable strategic choices, wartime suffering, disorganization, the needless loss of life, and the brutal realization that a single soldier is ultimately nothing but a replaceable cog in a heartless machine. As the generation that fought and won World War II leaves the stage, James Jones's book reminds us of what they accomplished – and what they sacrificed to do so.
Reviews
"The most stirring and lucid account of World War II that I have ever read" – Joseph Heller
"Anytime he writes of war you can smell the gunsmoke. A book like this was needed to remind us what it was like... A remarkable achievement" – James Michener
"[Jones] overcomes the vastness of the event by emphasizing his personal experience of it, thus giving the reader a foothold in the text that is far more satisfying than gliding across a glossy overview. He overcomes his limited viewpoint of the war by symbolizing it in the experience of the common infantryman and locating in that experience a unique significance" – Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
"A remarkable history... This was a substantial effort – [Jones] had both the long view and the personal one, having not only experienced the war but having thought long and hard about it" – Robert Gottlieb, New York Review of Books
"Jones is a man of experience and memories... [He] has written 'WWII' with passion, projected in accounts of actions he never saw no less than of actions in which he participated... Anyone can salute 'WWII' as providing vivid vicarious experiences, a mind-bending extension into new territory of whatever one knew before, not only about war but about human nature" – Alfred C. Ames, Chicago Tribune
"An expert, eloquent personal remembrance of battles past, what it felt like to live each day as possibly one's last, what it felt like to go into battle, and finally what it felt like to get hit... written by one of the best combat novelists of our time" – San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
"Spectacular and revealing" – National Observer
"Amazing... With his inimitable bent for realism, his perception and his combat infantry experiences in the South Pacific, [Jones] has managed to write about the whole war, in all its far-flung theaters, and with its entire cast of combatants... Should be required reading" – Cleveland Press
"Combat, as it appeared to the GIs who dodged bullets and watched their comrades die, is brilliantly portrayed... An antidote to the hundreds of books about the war which have been written by generals and politicians" – New York Daily News
"Anyone who truly wants to understand [our] civilization ought to read it" – Providence Journal
"Superb... the sights, the sounds and smells of the war as well as the feelings of the men who fought it... 'WWII' will bring the memories flooding back; for the student of that global conflict and for the general reader... a vivid, highly instructive capsule course in what happened during those dramatic 44-plus months" – Philadelphia Bulletin
"This may be Jones's great contribution to the history of war" – New Haven Register
