Free Republic

Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller is an American hero, the first Black sailor to earn the Navy Cross. On Dec. 7, 1941, under fire, he helped move the mortally wounded commander of the battleship West Virginia to safety and then manned a machine gun -- a weapon he was barred from training with because of his race -- to fire at attacking aircraft. A sign at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial visitors center says Miller died on the USS Liscombe Bay in 1944 at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Miller actually died the year before, 1943, on the USS Liscome...

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Pearl Harbor Monday, the U.S. Navy is expected to announce that a new aircraft carrier will be named after Mess Attendant 2nd Class Doris Miller, the first African American to receive the Navy Cross for valor for his actions on Dec. 7, 1941, when he manned a machine gun on the USS West Virginia to fire back at attacking Japanese planes. “I think that Doris Miller is an American hero simply because of what he represents as a young man going beyond the call of what’s expected,” said Doreen Ravenscroft, president of Cultural...