Miles Grant France, 86, died at his home in Palmer on June 9, 2008. His funeral is 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 18 at the Elks Hall at Finger Lake, with interment following at the Palmer Pioneer Cemetery. Pastor Jonathan Rockey of St. John Lutheran Church in Palmer will officiate. Friends and family will bear him into the earth.

France was born to Bernice Iva Maude Hendershot and Grant Clarence France at Staples, Minn., on Dec. 4, 1921. He arrived in Alaska when 12 years old with his family as part of the Colonist organization of 1935. He arrived at Seward aboard the ship St. Michiel, amazingly the same vessel that had carried his father Grant back from France, after World War I. Within minutes of the St. Michiel’s arrival in Seward, Miles and many Colonist kids ran off for the peak of Mt. Marathon, it being the first mountain he had ever touched.

He enlisted in the Marines as soon as he was 18 years old, amidst World War II. France was assigned to the Marines’ 4th Division, in an engineering group, working explosive ordinance disposal. He fought in the Pacific Island Battles of Roi-Namur and Saipan before being shot through his left chest. After a long recovery, he volunteered for Adak, and while there volunteered to participate in the formal surrender of Northern Honshu and all of Hokkaido, Japan, personally escorting the Japanese leaders to the signings aboard the USS Panamint, on Sept. 8, 1945. France then worked for the Alaska Road Commission, and after statehood, with the Bureau of Public Roads from Palmer, working the roads until retiring.

Hunting, fishing and flying adventures filled his life. His old Piper J5, the old silver and black “Flying Farmer,” was viewed in the Valley skies for many years.

France was a life member of the local Elks and Moose lodges and a member of the Pioneers.

France is survived by his wife, Donna Jean Durand, a gold miner’s daughter, whom he married on Feb. 20, 1943 in Yuma, Ariz. Four children were born to them of whom two still live: son Miles Duane of Wasilla Lake and daughter Sandra Jane Nichols of Arlington, Wash. He was preceded in death by daughters Pamela Jean (Swift) Edwards and Kathleen Kay France; brothers Vernon Henry and Norman Edward; and sister June Delores (Granger) Withey, and is survived by his sister Laura Blanche Stenberg. He also leaves behind five grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren.