William Nolan Jones, Jr. was born on Oct. 9, 1919, in the area of Smyrna. He was the third child of William Nolan Jones, Sr. and Blanche Jones (née Lewis). He had two older sisters and two younger brothers. In January 1920, Jones was living with his family on a farm along Raymond Neck Road in Smyrna. That month, Jones’s parents purchased a property in Leipsic but sold the property in February 1921.
The Jones family moved to Main Street in Smyrna by the next census taken in April 1930. According to census records, Jones dropped out of school after completing fifth grade. He was working as a barber by the time he married Priscilla May Collins in Seaford on March 5, 1939.
The couple was recorded on the census in April 1940 living with Jones’s parents and two brothers on Main Street in Smyrna. Jones was working as a barber at a welfare home, while his wife was a knitter of hosiery. By the time Jones registered for the draft on Oct. 16, 1940, the couple had moved to 15 Choate Street in Newark.
Jones was drafted, joining the U.S. Army on March 22, 1943. He was briefly stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, but by April 3, 1943, he was at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, for basic training. He was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, as of July 1943; at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, as of December 28, 1943; and Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, as of January 11, 1944.
In early 1944, Private Jones went overseas to Italy. Briefly assigned to the 2nd Replacement Depot, he was dispatched to the Anzio beachhead. Anzio was an amphibious operation intended to bypass strong German defensive lines to the south. However, enemy reinforcements quickly bottled up the Allied force.
Private Jones joined Company “E,” 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division on February 8, 1944. Anzio was an unforgiving place to enter combat for the first time. Allied forces managed to hold despite a series of fierce German counterattacks during the month of February 1944. Even when the front lines were quiet, the entire beachhead was subjected to constant German artillery fire as well as air raids.
The Germans launched yet another counterattack early on Feb. 29, 1944. In Private Jones’s battalion’s sector, near Isola Bella, the enemy attacked with 14 tanks along with infantry. The tanks and enemy artillery pounded the men of Company “E.”
During the first day of the German counterattack, Private Jones went missing in action. Despite heavy losses, the American positions held and the German counterattack petered out on March 3, 1944.
Jones’s widow, Priscilla Jones, joined the Women’s Army Corps on Dec. 9, 1944, serving until 1946, when she remarried.
With no indication that Private Jones could have survived, authorities issued a finding of death effective July 15, 1945. Private Jones and another soldier from his regiment were recovered from isolated graves near Tenuta, northwest of Isola Bella, on Dec. 19, 1947. Private Jones was identified from his dog tags and temporarily reburied at the U.S. Military Cemetery Nettuno, Italy, three days later.
In 1948, Jones’s father requested that his son’s body be repatriated to the United States. That fall, Private Jones’s casket traveled from Naples to the New York Port of Embarkation aboard the Lawrence Victory. After funeral services on Nov. 18, 1948, his body was buried at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Smyrna.
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