Except for Mother, All of Frank Miles Family Is in Army
DES MOINES, (AP)—Except for mother, the whole Frank Miles family of Des Moines is in the army now.
Capt. Frank Miles, state selective service official and editor of the Iowa Legionaire, disclosed the enlistment of his second son, William B., 18, in the army air corps.
Frank Miles Jr., 20, became an army aviation cadet the day war was declared. Captain Miles has no other children.
William was center on the Drake University freshman team last fall. On Sept. 5, he played center on the west team in the East-West All-Star Iowa high school football game. As center and captain of the Roosevelt high team here in 1940, he received All-State recognition.
Source: The Mason City Globe-Gazette, Friday, January 2, 1942
LIEUT. MILES, SON OF MAJOR FRANK MILES KILLED IN ITALY
Major Frank Miles, public relations officer for the Iowa selective service organization, received word last week that his son Second Lt. William Miles, 21, Liberator bomber pilot had been killed in action in Italy. Lieut. Miles was an all-state high school football center for Roosevelt high in 1940, starred in track and attended Drake university before being sworn into the army air corps at the Fort Des Moines army post in December 1941.
The message in which his death was reported was received by his widow at her home in Helena, Ark. He is survived by his parents and one brother. Lieut. Frank Miles, Jr., a bombardier stationed at Albuquerque, New Mex.
Source: The Estherville Daily News, June 15, 1944
Name Chapel in Memory of Lt. Miles
A chapel at a bomber base in Italy was named i memory of Lt. William B. Miles, an army release announced. Lieutenant Miles, son of Maj. and Mrs. Frank Miles, 4215 Grand ave., was killed in action May 17, 1944, the first of his bomber group to die.
The chapel, constructed of native stone and other materials by American airmen, has hand-painted windows simulating stained glass. It was designated as a worshipping place for all denominations.
Lieutenant Miles, a Roosevelt High school graduate and former Drake university student, was mortally wounded when his plane was struck by anti-aircraft shell fragments on his seventh mission.
His father, Maj. Frank Miles, former public relations director of Iowa selective service, is now a war correspondent for the Legionaire, American Legion magazine, and is en route to the India, China, Burma theater. He recently visited his son's grave at Bari, Italy.
Widow of the Des Moines airman, Mrs. Kathleen Miles, and an 11 month old son, William, jr., reside in Helena, Ark.
Source: Des Moines Tribune, June 25, 1945 (photo included)
Bill and Kathleen Miles-unknown photo date
William Baker Miles, Sr. was born Jan. 19, 1923 to Frank Floyd and Ora Estelle Baker Miles. He died May 17, 1944 and is buried in Masonic Cemetery, Des Moines, IA. Additional research checking on what happened to the widow and child of this man. She stayed in Arkansas and remarried in 1954. Her son took on his stepfather's name and became William Miles Warren.
Source: ancestry.com
