Whistle (1978) by James Jones, image courtesy Delacorte Press

James Jones was a 20-year-old U.S. Army private stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii when the Japanese struck at dawn on December 7, 1941. The Pearl Harbor attack, along with his other WW II experiences, would forever be seared into Jones, who would go on to write what many believe is the greatest war trilogy ever.

Writer James Jones Born in Robinson, Illinois

James Ramon Jones was born in Robinson, Illinois, on November 6, 1921. His father, Ramon Jones (known as “Doctor Ray”), was a dentist while his mother, Ada Blessing Jones, was a homemaker. Both of Jones’ parents died at relatively young ages, his mother at age 52 of congestive heart failure in 1941 and his 55-year-old alcoholic father of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1942.  

James Jones’ Army Enlistment

Following graduation from Robinson Township High School in 1939, James Jones enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, assigned serial number 6915544. His first stop was Chanute Field in Illinois, located approximately 100 miles from his native Robinson.

Unhappy with his prospects in the Air Corps, Jones eventually transferred to the infantry. His new unit was the famed 27th Infantry Regiment, formed in 1901 shortly after the Spanish-American War. It was still the peacetime Army, with Jones now stationed at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu.

The peace, however, was soon shattered on that fateful morning in 1941 when Japanese planes hit Pearl Harbor in a lightning attack. “It was not ’til the first low-flying fighter came skidding, whammering low overhead with his MGs [machine guns] going that we ran outside…aware with a sudden sense of awe that we were seeing and acting in a genuine moment of history,” Jones later wrote in WW II.

Killed in the attack were “three of the best friends I’ve had since I’ve been in the army” Jones reported in a letter to his father.

James Jones on Guadalcanal

As part of the newly-formed 25th Division, Jones and his comrades shipped out to the South Pacific in December 1942. Their destination was Guadalcanal, where Japanese fighters attacked the American troopships anchored off the coast.

On the ‘Canal, Jones fought as a corporal with the 27th Wolfhound Regiment. On the third day of fierce fighting for a complex of hills called the Galloping Horse, fragments from a Japanese mortar shell wounded Jones in the head. “I came out of it with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for ‘heroic or meritorious service,’ which was given to me apparently by a process as random as that of the random mortar shell that hit me,” Jones later recalled.

One of Jones’ most horrific war experiences came later, when he and a Japanese soldier engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Although badly wounded, the enemy soldier refused to die, with Jones finally killing him with only the greatest of efforts. Now covered with blood and excrement, a shaken Jones went through the dead man’s pockets, discovering a photo of the soldier standing with his wife and child.

An old ankle injury, coupled with a diagnosis of psychoneurosis, eventually led to Jones’ separation from the service. Jones was honorably discharged from the Army on July 6, 1944.

James Jones’ War Novels

James Jones eventually became one of America’s most celebrated writers. His first novel, From Here to Eternity (Scribners, 1951), was set at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii just prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. It later won the National Book Award for fiction in 1952 and was subsequently made into motion picture in 1953 starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Deborah Kerr.

The Eternity saga continued with The Thin Red Line (Scribners, 1962), a searing war novel set during the 1942-43 Guadalcanal campaign. Brutal in its telling, the book shed a nervous light on the American rifleman in combat, complete with gold teeth-hunting GIs, incompetent officers, war atrocities and drunken brawls in rear areas. The Thin Red Line was made into a film in 1964 and again in 1998.

The final book in Jones’ war trilogy was Whistle (Delacorte, 1978), set at an Army Hospital in the fictional city of Luxor, Tennessee. Four soldiers from the fighting in the Pacific return stateside, pursuing love, booze, sex and good times while recovering from their war wounds and injuries. Whistle, published posthumously, was completed by Willie Morris, who used tape recordings with Jones along with the author’s extensive notes to summarize the final three chapters.

James Jones’ Other War Books, Death in 1977

James Jones also authored several other war-related books, including the novella The Pistol (1958) and two nonfiction works, Viet Journal (1974) and WW II (1975).   

James Jones died at age 55 of congestive heart failure on May 9, 1977. He was survived by his wife Gloria, who died in 2006, and two children, Kaylie and Jamie.

“Ahead of them the LCI’s waited to take them aboard, and slowly they began to file into them to be taken out to climb the cargo nets up into the big ships. One day one of their number would write a book about all this, but none of them would believe it, because none of them would remember it that way.” - James Jones, The Thin Red Line