Preserving a Legacy: The Papers of USS Arizona Officer Thomas Raymond Jones

So much of what we know about World War II comes down to numbers. Ships lost, men killed, dates on a calendar. Most of the men who served that way are just names on a list, accurate but flat. Archives are what add the rest back in. A letter, a photograph, a detail that never made it into any official record. Someone must save these things, catalog them, and keep them intact, or that fuller picture never comes together. That is how a name on a memorial wall becomes an actual person. Someone who played football, called his mother before shipping out, and wrote home about what life in the Navy was really like. This collection is why that picture exists for Thomas Raymond Jones.

Childhood Before Joining the Naval Reserves

Thomas Raymond "Ray" Jones was born on March 31, 1918, in Morton, Mississippi, and was the middle son of Harvey and Susie Jones. The Jones family did not stay in Mississippi long, moving to Lake Providence, Louisiana, and then, in 1931, to Tallulah, just as the Great Depression was taking hold across the country.

Money was tight, and like many families at the time, everyone pitched in. While their father was the local jeweler, Ray and his two brothers, Burney and Jack, delivered newspapers, worked as janitors at their church, took shifts at a local grocery store, and mowed lawns around town to help make ends meet. It was the kind of work that shaped many kids growing up in the 1930s. It was unglamorous but steady, and it taught Jones' early on how to show up and get the job done. None of that kept Ray from being a typical high school kid, though. He played fullback for the Tallulah High School football team, which won the Louisiana state championship in 1934. According to his brother Jack, Ray scored two touchdowns in that title game. Ray would graduate from high school in 1936.

From Louisiana State University to the Fleet

Ray went on to study at Louisiana State University, where he joined the ROTC program and was promoted to Sergeant in Company E. College life suited Ray, and by all accounts he took to the structure of military training quickly. It was not long before he decided to pursue a career in it. In 1940, he enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve and was selected for the second class of the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipman School in New York City, training aboard the USS Prairie State (IX-15), a decommissioned battleship permanently moored in the Hudson River and repurposed as a floating classroom for young officer candidates like Ray. He earned his commission as an Ensign in February 1941 and was assigned almost immediately to the USS Arizona (BB-39), where he served as a Supply Corps Officer.

The Cusp of War

When Ray was given the choice between duty in the Atlantic or the Pacific, he called his mother. She still remembered the German U-boats from the First World War, the "wolfpacks," and told him to join the Pacific fleet. Once aboard the Arizona, Ray hope he would eventually be reassigned to the Navy's PT boats, the small, fast ones also called "mosquito" boats. However, Ray had seemed happy enough where he was at.

A lot of what we know about this part of his life comes straight from him. Ray frequently sent letters home to his parents and brothers, as well as taking photographs during his time in Honolulu, many of which are now part of the collection. In one letter, dated April 19, 1941, he wrote:

"The Navy is my life- I haven't felt better in years. The fresh salt air and damn good food, sunshine, and etc., have made a different person out of me – ha! I still wouldn't trade the Navy for any other occupation."

December 7, 1941

Before this, Ray has been on shore duty. In November 1941, he asked to be transferred back to a ship, and the Navy granted his request. He was back aboard the Arizona when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the next month. A bomb hit the ship's forward ammunition magazine, and the resulting explosion caused the ship to sink rapidly, killing 1,177 sailors aboard. Ensign Jones was just 23 when he was killed in the attack.

He had already received the American Defense Service Medal for his service during the period of limited emergency. After his death, he was also awarded the Purple Heart, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Combat Action Ribbon.

A Lasting Legacy

Most of the archival collections from the Center for Pacific War Studies come from personal donations. Materials given to us by family members carry the stories of their loved ones. Ray's is one of them.

Ray, like many of his fellow sailors, was never recovered from the Arizona. Getting men out of the wreck as it went down, and after the attack, was next to impossible. What survived was his trunk. Inside were his personal photographs, his officer's sword, and pieces of his uniform, items that had been with him through his time in the Navy, right up until the Arizona went down. The photographs had taken on serious water damage, but then in the 1980s, they underwent conservation to repair damage the, which is why we still have them today. Ray's portrait and the telegram notice of his death from Fleet Admiral Nimitz are now on display in the Pearl harbor exhibit.

The Thomas Raymond Jones Papers are temporarily at the University of North Texas where it is being digitized and uploaded to the Portal to Texas History. Once that is done, anyone will be able to access his letters, photographs, naval documents, and story online. Almost 85 years later, those are the things that keep Ray's story alive. Photographs and letters, and the memory of a kid from Tallulah who scored two touchdowns in a state championship game.

What's Currently Available:

Thomas Raymond Jones Papers - The Portal to Texas History

Collection: Thomas Raymond Jones Collection | Center for Pacific War Studies

Sources:

USS Arizona Interments - Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

USS Arizona - Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)