The Santa Cruz Sentinel included the name of Jesse Adams in their Roll of Honor of Santa Cruz War Dead. Jesse Lee Adams, the foster son of Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Parrish of Capitola was born in Oklahoma on December 5, 1918. He received his grammar school education in Texas before moving to Bakersfield, California. It is possible that he lived with the Parrish family in Santa Cruz County during the late 1930s. In the early 1940s, Adams was living in Southern California and working for the Douglas Aircraft Company as a head miller at their Los Angeles facility. While in Southern California, he married a local girl who remained in Santa Monica during his military service.

Jesse Adams enlisted in the US Army at Ft. McArthur on June 10, 1944. Following his basic training at Camp Hood, Texas, he returned to California and was stationed briefly at Fort Ord before being shipped overseas.

Private Adams was a member of the 158th Infantry that served in the Pacific Theater. He took part in the invasion of the Philippines and in late April 1945, was wounded during the capture of the port and city of Legaspi. After a three-day hospitalization period, he returned to duty at Camalig, where his unit was cleaning out Japanese pockets of resistance.

On April 23, 1945, Private First Class Jesse Lee Adams was killed in action. His body was buried in the Philippines but his remains were returned to the United States in 1949 for reburial in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno.

(NARA2; USDVA; SCSn May 18, 1945 1:4; The Army Surgeon General, Entry 31, Portable Surgical Hospitals - 3d, Box 234, [16 September 2008]; GGNC Survey)