Who Was Doris Miller — and Why Is the Navy Naming an Aircraft Carrier After Him?
When Japanese planes appeared over Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Doris Miller was not at a battle station. He was below decks on the USS West Virginia, gathering laundry in his job as a ship's mess attendant — a role that reflected the Navy's strict segregation at the time.
The West Virginia was one of four battleships lost that morning. The Colorado-class vessel took at least seven torpedo hits and two bombs before it settled in the shallow water of the harbor. Amid the chaos, Miller moved wounded sailors to safety, then climbed behind a .50-caliber antiaircraft gun and opened fire on Japanese aircraft. He had never been trained on the weapon, and he kept firing until the ammunition ran out. He continued helping evacuate crewmates even after the order to abandon ship was given.
Doris 'Dorie' Miller was born Oct. 12, 1919, and joined the Navy in 1939. At the time, Black sailors were largely limited to mess and steward duties, and Miller rose to the rank of ship's cook, third class. But Pearl Harbor turned him into one of the war's earliest American heroes. On May 27, 1942, Adm. Chester Nimitz presented him with the Navy Cross aboard the USS Enterprise. Miller became the first African American to receive that honor.
His service, though, was cut short. On Nov. 24, 1943, Miller was assigned to the escort carrier Liscome Bay when a Japanese torpedo hit the ship about 20 miles southwest of Butaritari Island, an atoll nearly 2,400 miles northeast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean. The carrier sank, and Miller was among 644 sailors who died that day. He was 24.
Miller's legacy did not fade, but for decades it stayed on the margins of the country's official memory. The Navy did name a destroyer escort, the USS Miller, in his honor. That ship was commissioned in 1973, later reclassified as a frigate, and remained on the Naval Vessel Register until it was struck in 1995.
The more significant recognition came on Jan. 20, 2020, when acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly announced that CVN 81, the Navy's fourth Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, would be called the USS Doris Miller. The announcement was made at a ceremony in Pearl Harbor on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it marked the first time a U.S. aircraft carrier had been named for an African American or for an enlisted sailor.
For the Navy, the naming was also a reckoning with its own history. Miller served in a segregated institution that gave Black sailors few chances to prove themselves in combat — and he did so anyway, on one of the most important days of the 20th century. Putting his name on a supercarrier says, in effect, that the service is now willing to measure leadership and heroism by something other than rank or race.
The ship itself will not enter the fleet for years. The USS Doris Miller is scheduled for delivery in February 2032. As a Ford-class carrier, it will be among the largest warships ever built for the Navy: 1,092 feet long, with a 124-foot beam, a 256-foot-wide flight deck, and a cruising speed of 30 knots. The Ford class also requires fewer crew members than the older Nimitz-class ships, thanks to 23 new or upgraded systems. Each of the new carriers is expected to save about $4 billion over its lifetime compared with a Nimitz-class carrier.
A man once assigned to gather laundry will eventually have his name on a 100,000-ton warship, serving as a reminder that courage is not limited to the roles allowed by birth.