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Like many Americans, Oxford families sacrificed much during World War II. One such family was that of J. Edward Miles on Chestnut Tree Hill Road. During the war years, the family bid farewell to five of their sons and a son-in-law as they left to serve their country. One son, the eldest of the five sons to serve, Sgt. David Sheldon Miles, died aboard the SS Dorchester on February 3, 1943 as the result of enemy action when a German submarine torpedoed the transport ship in the North Atlantic while carrying some 903 men to Greenland.

In a letter dated June 1, 1943, to a niece after confirmation of her son’s death, Susannah Williams Miles lamented, “We all feel terrible but there isn’t anything we can do about it. It is the first break in my family so it is pretty hard to bear. We must think it is all for the best and we are not alone in our troubles.”

Two other sons served abroad, Sgt. Robert Newsome Miles on the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea, and Sgt. H. Wilson Miles in Germany. Both Sgt. Edward Upson Miles and Sgt. Franklyn Russell Miles served at Armed Forces bases in this country. Franklyn went on to serve his country in the US Air Force for a total of twenty years.

Son-in-law Benjamin V. Samoker married Frances Miles, a sister of the five servicemen, in 1941, and had a new baby girl when he answered his country’s call to duty by joining the US Navy and serving in Panama for almost two years.

On the cover of a new book is a photo of the five service men at the Miles family homestead on Chestnut Tree Hill Road. Standing proudly in uniform, left to right are: Benjamin Samoker, Robert, Franklyn, Edward, and H. Wilson Miles in 1945.

The book, World War II Revisited, by Oxford native, Audrey Cable Linke, will be on sale for the first on Sunday at the Oxford Historical Society's Twitchell-Rowland Homestead, 60 Towner Lane, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Thanks to Jane Hulbert and Marcia Wrogg for the photo and the family background used on the cover of this new book.