Text by Michael Mullen, Professor of English, Vincennes (IN) University

After he moved back to the United States in the mid-seventies, Jones was approached by Art Weithas, head art director of YANK, with an offer to write the text for a picture book of World War II graphic art. Jones was again reluctant to set aside Whistle for another book; his decision this time was not influenced by a desire for adventure, but by the World War II art that he saw.

A trip to Washington to see some of the actual art as well as files of photographs of paintings and drawings got Jones even more excited about the project. He agreed with Weithas that something ought to be done with the art so people could see it and think about it, something Jones thought particularly important since "...thirty-five years has glossed it all over and given World War II a polish and a gloss that it did not have at the time."

Though the six months Jones spent writing WW II would have enabled him to finish Whistle, the time devoted to WW II was not wasted. Because of the quality of the graphic material and Jones's text, WW II is far superior to most coffee table books. The information Jones provided about his army experiences offers insight into his stories and novels, and Jones in WW II discussed his concept of the evolution of a soldier, central to Jones's work and dramatized so effectively in the army trilogy.

While many reviewers approached WW II with misgivings (common was the view of Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who felt that the war was too big, and Jones's view of it too limited for him to be successful writing about it in this way), the critical response was almost universally favorable. Herbert Kupferberg, in the National Observer, said that the illustrations in WW II are "spectacular and revealing," and like many reviewers argued that the book was more than just a collection of pictures. Jones's text, he wrote, "actually grows from the pictures, and it provides a genuine sense of the peril and drudgery that composed the life of the average doughfoot." This, most critics agreed, was the greatest strength of WW II, and some thought so highly of the book they called it Jones's best work since From Here to Eternity.

Art Weithas asked Jones to supply the text to accompany a collection of World War II art. He got more than that. Jones produced a text which could stand alone without the support of the artwork as a presentation of a viewpoint of the war which was often disregarded, that of the common soldier, and as a nonfiction appendix to his war trilogy which was completed with the publication of Jones's next, and final, book.