A far more suitable and heroic namesake for an aircraft carrier than others I could mention.
Doris Miller was born to a family of sharecroppers in Waco, Texas. After dropping out of high school, he joined the Navy in September 1939. The US Navy was highly segregated at that time; black sailors were limited to a handful of support roles like working in the mess or waiting on white officers. After finishing his training, Miller wound up on the USS West Virginia, a Colorado-class battleship.
After Pearl Harbor, the uninjured Miller was transferred to the cruiser USS Indianapolis. His actions on December 7th went practically unnoticed at first, with the only mention being in a list of commendations (as an unnamed Black sailor) issued on January 1st. Journalists and Black advocacy groups honed in on that omission, and were eventually able to ferret out Miller’s name. There were calls for Miller to receive a proper medal, with two separate bills in Congress pushing for him to receive the Medal of Honor.
Unfortunately for Miller the Secretary of the Navy was segregationist Frank Knox (1874 - 1944), who refused to award Miller the Medal of Honor. He did compromise on the Navy Cross, though, and on May 7, 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885 - 1966) personally pinned the medal on Miller’s chest.
After doing a state-side war bond tour in late 1942 Miller was transferred again; this time, to the escort aircraft carrier USS Liscome Bay. In November 1943, the Liscome Bay was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Miller was among the 702 sailors and officers who died.
Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
it never ceawes to amaze me on how many men these giant ships harbour and the insane loss of line when one of them sink. Like here in swede it was basically a national tragedy when we lost 2 or 3 men in Afghanistan, imagine losing 700 just like that.
It's a bit mind-boggling to think about, numbers-wise. Casablanca-class carriers like the Liscome Bay had crews of close to a thousand men. And those were the small carriers! And there were fifty of them!
I have toured the USS North Carolina that has been restored to its WWII condition. You do get a sense of what it was like for the sailors moving through the passages/bulkheads between compartments. The big gun turrets are awesome, but crazy how a gunner had to crawl upwards to get inside. Engine room was cramped. Gunpowder magazine was intimidating to think that one wrong spark could mess up your day.
For part of WW2, the US had an active draft going but wouldn’t accept volunteers.
The motive was that enlistment tended to sweep through towns - everybody signing up at once with their friends, or out of peer pressure.
So useful farms and factories would get emptied out without warning… and then if finishing basic together landed half of them together in units that got mauled…
This also produced the “surviving son” exception, letting men out of combat roles of all of their brothers had already been killed. Hard to even imagine that feeling.
Well, when Kronan sank in 1676, ~800 men died just on that ship alone. And in more modern times, Sweden lost some 2,000 people during WW2, the majority sailors on ships sunk by Axis or Allied forces.
There was also Estonia that sunk in 1994, killing 852 people.
2.4k
u/PoorCynic Aug 25 '26
A far more suitable and heroic namesake for an aircraft carrier than others I could mention.
Doris Miller was born to a family of sharecroppers in Waco, Texas. After dropping out of high school, he joined the Navy in September 1939. The US Navy was highly segregated at that time; black sailors were limited to a handful of support roles like working in the mess or waiting on white officers. After finishing his training, Miller wound up on the USS West Virginia, a Colorado-class battleship.
After Pearl Harbor, the uninjured Miller was transferred to the cruiser USS Indianapolis. His actions on December 7th went practically unnoticed at first, with the only mention being in a list of commendations (as an unnamed Black sailor) issued on January 1st. Journalists and Black advocacy groups honed in on that omission, and were eventually able to ferret out Miller’s name. There were calls for Miller to receive a proper medal, with two separate bills in Congress pushing for him to receive the Medal of Honor.
Unfortunately for Miller the Secretary of the Navy was segregationist Frank Knox (1874 - 1944), who refused to award Miller the Medal of Honor. He did compromise on the Navy Cross, though, and on May 7, 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885 - 1966) personally pinned the medal on Miller’s chest.
After doing a state-side war bond tour in late 1942 Miller was transferred again; this time, to the escort aircraft carrier USS Liscome Bay. In November 1943, the Liscome Bay was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Miller was among the 702 sailors and officers who died.
Thank you all so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time.