Henry Ford II was born in Detroit on Sept. 4, 1917, the eldest of four children of Mr. And Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, the son of Henry Ford.

Henry Ford II was a member of the board of Ford Motor Company and chairman of the Finance Committee until his death on Sept. 29, 1987. He had been active since 1940 in the worldwide corporation founded by his grandfather in 1903. He resigned as chief executive officer on Oct. 1, 1979, as chairman of the board March 13, 1980, and as an officer and employee Oct. 1, 1982.

Mr. Ford was elected a director of the company in 1938. He took his first job with Ford in 1940 as a mechanic in the dynamometer room Dearborn, Mich. He later worked at Rouge plant installations in Dearborn and in the company's engineering test garage.

He took a military leave from the company in April 1941 to join the U.S. Naval Reserve as an ensign and served at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago. In May 1943 as a command lieutenant (j.g.), he was awaiting orders to sea duty when his father, Edsel B. Ford, then company president, died.

Two months later, Mr. Ford was placed on inactive duty to return to Ford and direct the company's war production. On Dec. 15, 1943, he was elected a vice president and on April 28, 1944, he became executive vice president.

Mr. Ford became president of Ford Motor Company on Sept. 21, 1945, on the retirement of his grandfather, Henry Ford.

He was elected chairman of the board and served in the dual role of president and chairman from July 13, 1960, when Ernest R. Breech retired as chairman, until Nov. 9 of the same year when Robert S. McNamara was elected president. When Mr. McNamara left the company on Jan. 3, 1961, to become Secretary of Defense in the cabinet of President Kennedy, Mr. Ford again assumed the dual role until April 12, 1961, when John Dykstra was elected president.

Under Mr. Ford's guidance, the company expanded its sales from $894.5 million in 1946 to $43.5 billion on 1979.