James Norman Hall (22 April 1887 â 5 July 1951) was an American writer best known for The Bounty Trilogy, a series of historical novels co-authored with Charles Bernard Nordhoff: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934), and Pitcairn's Island (1934). During World War I, Hall uniquely served in the armed forces of three Allied nationsâÂÂGreat Britain as an infantryman, and later France and the United States as an aviator. His wartime honors include the Croix de Guerre, the Médaille Militaire, the Légion d'Honneur, and the Distinguished Service Cross. After the war, he settled in Tahiti, where he and Nordhoff wrote a number of successful adventure novels, many of which were adapted into films. He was also the father of Conrad L. Hall, a three-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer.
Hall was born in Colfax, Iowa, where he attended local schools. His early home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1910. Hall also wrote the song Sons of Old Grinnell, which remains part of the college songbook. After graduation, he worked as a social worker in Boston for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children while pursuing a writing career and studying for a master's degree at Harvard University.
Hall was vacationing in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1914, when World War I broke out. Posing as a Canadian, he enlisted in the British Army and served in the Royal Fusiliers as a machine gunner during the Battle of Loos. After his true nationality was discovered, he was discharged and returned to the United States. His first book, Kitchener's Mob (1916), recounts these wartime experiences. It sold moderately well in America, and following a speaking tour to promote it, Hall returned to Europe in 1916 on assignment with The Atlantic Monthly. He was tasked with writing a series of stories about American volunteers in the Lafayette Escadrille, but after spending time with the group, Hall became inspired to enlist in the Aéronautique Militaire, the French air service at the time. By then, a growing number of American pilotsâÂÂincluding HallâÂÂwere serving in various French squadrons as part of the Lafayette Flying Corps, a larger effort that went beyond the Escadrille. He trained at the Avord and Pau aviation schools and was assigned to Escadrille N.124âÂÂthe famed Lafayette EscadrilleâÂÂin June 1917. After being wounded in combat, he recovered and rejoined the unit later that year.
During his time in French aviation, Hall was awarded the Croix de Guerre with five palms and the Médaille Militaire. In early 1918, after the United States entered the war, the Lafayette Escadrille was incorporated into the American 103rd Aero Squadron, and Hall was commissioned as a captain in the Army Air Service. Hall flew several combat missions over the Western Front with the 103rd Aero Squadron and later the 94th Aero Squadron, one of the first American pursuit units. During a brief period in early 1918, he served as acting commander of the 94th, where he flew alongside future ace Eddie Rickenbacker.
On May 7, 1918, during a dogfight over German lines, Hall's Nieuport lost fabric on its upper wing and was hit by antiaircraft fire, forcing him to crash-land in enemy territory. After being shot down, Hall spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war in Germany. Hall was held at Landshut prison camp in Bavaria. During captivity, he kept a secret diary and continued writing, an experience that later influenced both his memoir High Adventure and his fiction. Following his release, he received both the French Légion d'Honneur and the American Distinguished Service Cross.
His experiences with both French and American units informed his later writing. In the postwar period, Hall was tasked with compiling a history of American pilots who had flown for France as a part of the Lafayette Flying Corps. During this work, he met fellow aviator and writer Charles Bernard Nordhoff, who had also published in The Atlantic Monthly during the war. He met Ellery Sedgwick in 1916, after his first return from France, and began a literary partnership that would last over 25 years. Their first major collaboration, published in 1920, was The Lafayette Flying CorpsâÂÂa two-volume chronicle of American aviators in French service that remains a key source on the subject.
Not long after publishing The Lafayette Flying Corps, Hall settled in Tahiti, where he reunited with Nordhoff, and the two embarked on a successful writing career together. Together, they co-authored a number of successful adventure novels, most notably their trilogy of novels based on the Bounty mutiny, beginning with Mutiny on the Bounty. In addition to the various Bounty films, several of their works were adapted into films, including The Hurricane (1937), which starred HallâÂÂs nephew, Jon Hall; Passage to Marseille (1944), featuring Humphrey Bogart; and Botany Bay (1953), starring Alan Ladd.
In 1940, Hall published a book of poems titled Oh Millersville! under the pseudonym Fern Gravel. Written in the voice of a ten-year-old girl, the poems received critical acclaim. The literary hoax remained undisclosed until 1946, when Hall revealed the truth in his Atlantic Monthly article "Fern Gravel: A Hoax and a Confession.â He explained that the inspiration had come to him in a dream in which a young girl named Fern asked him to write down her poems. Upon waking, he recorded the verses, which offer simple yet vivid depictions of small-town life.
In 1925, Hall married Sarah âÂÂLalaâ Winchester (born Sarah Marguerite Sophie Teraireia Winchester; 1909âÂÂ1985), the daughter of a Tahitian mother and an English sea captain, giving her a half-Polynesian heritage. They had two children: the Academy AwardâÂÂwinning cinematographer Conrad Hall (1926âÂÂ2003), and Nancy Ella Hall Rutgers (1930-2020). Hall died in Tahiti in 1951 and is buried on the hillside above the modest wooden house where he and Lala had lived for many years. His grave bears a line of verse he wrote in Iowa at the age of eleven: "Look to the Northward stranger / Just over the hillside there / Have you ever in your travels seen / A land more passing fair?"
Hall's papers, including manuscripts and wartime correspondence, are housed in the Special Collections and Archives at Grinnell College. His home in Arue, French Polynesia, was restored by the government of Tahiti and now serves as a historic house museum. The museum includes Hall's 3,000-volume library and personal arrifacts on loan from his family. "The house itself is neither large nor prepossessing; it was built for comfort and practicality," wrote author Peter Benchley. "It's what's inside the house that I found most fascinating: paintings, photographs, artifacts and anecdotes from Hall's preliterary life."