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A Black serviceman forced to work in the kitchen, Doris Miller proved to be one of the greatest heroes amid the carnage of Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941, Navy sailor Doris Miller was below deck on the USS West Virginia, sorting laundry, when he heard the ship’s general alarm suddenly go off. Though Miller was a Black man, and thus relegated to being a mess attendant and cook, he leaped into action as Japanese planes roared above the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That day, the ship’s mess attendant would become one of its heroes.
As bombs fell all around him, Miller quickly made his way to the upper decks and took in the chaotic scene. Screams and smoke filled the air; planes buzzed low, red dots on their sides identifying them as Japanese aircraft.
Miller, who was not technically allowed to fire the ship’s guns because of his race, knew what he had to do and took up the controls of the nearest machine gun. As torpedos exploded around him, Miller shot at the planes.
“It wasn’t hard,” Miller later recalled. “I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine.”
Chester Nimitz And Doris Miller
U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons
Admiral Chester Nimitz awarding Doris Miller the Navy Cross aboard the USS Enterprise.
