Wilma S. Miles papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MSC-026

Staff Only

Content Description

The Wilma J. Miles papers were presented to the Naval War College in two separate lots: the first accession, mainly correspondence, writings, tourist literature, and photographs, was given by Mrs. Miles in 1974, and the second lot, correspondence and tourist literature relating to South America, in 1977. Both accessions were presented through the Naval War College Foundation.

The papers focus on Wilma Miles’s life and travels as a Navy wife for over a quarter of a century, with emphasis on the period from 1925 to 1955. They include materials relating to her life as a young bride in China from 1925 to 1927 during the era of the warlords and growing Chinese nationalism, and a return three-year stay there from 1936 to 1939, just prior to the outbreak of World War II. Another large segment of the papers focuses on her travels throughout South America when her husband served as Commandant of the Fifteenth Naval District, Balboa, Canal Zone, from 1954 to 1956.

The collection contains fifteen boxes, a file cabinet of photographs, and numerous photograph albums and books. It measures thirty-nine linear feet and is divided into six series: correspondence, writings, subject files, miscellany, photographs, and books.

Series I, personal correspondence, consists of letters to Wilma Miles from her fiancé, Milton Miles, and his letters to her mother, Mrs. Charles Jerman, containing news of China and his experiences as an officer in the Asiatic Fleet from 1922 to 1927 and again from 1936 to 1939. Most of the correspondence, however, is from Wilma to her mother during her two separate residences in China. Her letters are lengthy and describe her daily routine, her travels, and her impressions of Chinese life. They are important to the researcher for they provide insights into political events, historic figures, and a way of life that has since disappeared.

Series II, writings, contains Wilma Miles’s notes and vignettes of life in China during the 1920s and 1930s and an account of the family’s exciting journey over the Burma Road in 1939, including a children’s version. Her own autobiography, mainly treating with the 1950s, and a biography of her husband through 1939, which she wrote, can also be found here. In addition, a short story about China and a paper on Miles’s experiences in China as Head, U.S. Naval Group, China are the final components of this series.

Correspondence, itineraries, notes, and diaries of the Mileses’ travels to South America, Alaska, Europe, and the Near East from 1951 to 1960 are contained in Series III, subject files. Besides Miles’s experience and fascination with Chinese culture, he also had a strong interest in things Latin American. His assignments as Director of Pan American Affairs and Naval Missions, 1950–1954, and as Commandant of the Fifteenth Naval District, Balboa, Canal Zone, the following two years, required that he travel extensively throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Mrs. Miles traveled with him and on her own, and her impressions and experiences are reflected in the materials contained here.

Series IV, miscellany, contains guidebooks, maps, and foreign-language dictionaries for the Far East, Europe, and South America.

Photographs comprise Series V. The Mileses were amateur photographers and both took and developed their own photographs. The collection is extensive and the sixty-five volumes document their travels all over the world, from Alaska to India and China, from the 1920s to the 1950s. There are nine albums of Leica prints and negatives, four boxes of negative rolls, and one box of colored slides, as well as three boxes of prints and one file cabinet of prints.

The last series in the collection, Series VI, houses unpublished manuscripts and published books dealing with China, South America, and the U.S. Navy. Notes and drafts on U.S. Naval Group, China are here as well.

Dates

Creation: 1922 - 1999

Creator

Miles, Wilma Jerman, 1904-1996 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Access is open to all researchers, unless otherwise specified.

Conditions Governing Use

Material in this collection is in the public domain, unless otherwise noted.

Biographical Note

Wilma J. Miles was born on March 20, 1904, in Washington, D.C., to Charles and Ettie Sinton Jerman. Her father was from nearby Virginia and her mother from Keokuk, Iowa. Her growing-up years were spent in the city, where she attended Central High School. In 1921, she enrolled in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, where she majored in home economics and graduated in 1925. That summer she traveled cross-country with her mother bound for the West Coast, where she boarded a Dollar Lines passenger ship, SS Cleveland, to make the long journey to Hong Kong and her impending marriage to Ensign Milton E. Miles. She was married on September 4, just one day after she arrived, in the city’s Union Church.

For the next two years Wilma Miles lived in Hong Kong, traveling on occasion to meet her husband’s ship in Canton and to other areas of the country. The Mileses returned to the United States in 1927, where Milton attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1928 they moved to New York City, where they both attended Columbia University. She received a master’s degree in nutrition publicity and he in engineering in 1929. Their first son, William, was born in March of that year.

Miles’s next assignment was in the USS Saratoga and after a summer training session at General Electric in Schenectady, New York, they traveled by ship to the West Coast, settling first in Bremerton, then in Long Beach. The couple’s second son, Murray, was born there in 1931. In 1932, the Mileses returned to the Washington area, where Milton was assigned to the Bureau of Engineering in the Navy Department for a two-year period. At that time they built a home in the Maryland suburbs that they maintained for the next fifty years.

From 1934 to 1936, Wilma and her three sons (her third son, Charles, was born in 1934) lived in San Diego, the home port of USS Wickes, where Milton was assigned as Executive Officer. In 1936, he was named Squadron Material Officer of the USS Black Hawk, flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. Anxious to return to China, Wilma and the three boys followed the ship, spending summers in Chefoo and winters in Manila. Wilma traveled extensively throughout the Far East during their three-year stay there. She took a two-and-one-half-month trip throughout the Dutch East Indies and Indochina in 1937. In 1939, the Miles family exited China over the newly constructed Burma Road, from Kunming to Lashio. They then traveled overland to India, Afghanistan, and Iran before boarding a ship in Greece for the trip back to the United States.

During the war years, while Miles was Head of U.S. Naval Group, China and deputy director of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization, Wilma remained in Washington, D.C., where she worked in nutrition services for the Red Cross. With the war’s end in 1945, Miles returned to Washington and worked for a short time at the Office of Naval History organizing his research materials on China. In 1948, he became Commander of Cruiser Division Ten in the Mediterranean area with the rank of rear admiral. Both he and Wilma traveled widely throughout the area, entertaining royalty and heads of state.

From 1950 to 1956, Milton was involved in Latin American affairs as Director of Pan American Affairs and Naval Missions and then as Commandant of the Fifteenth Naval District in Balboa, Canal Zone. The Mileses again traveled extensively throughout the region, visiting most of the Central and South American countries and the Caribbean islands.

In 1958, Miles retired from the Navy and was subsequently promoted to vice admiral. He contracted cancer and died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on March 25, 1961. Wilma Miles remained in the Washington area, where she was involved in community affairs and continued to pursue an interest in travel. She died on July 1, 1996. Her autobiography, Billy, Navy Wife, was published in 1999.