Doris Miller

Doris Miller — Dorie to the navy that learned his name late — was a Waco mess attendant on USS West Virginia because the service still assigned Black sailors to the mess. On December 7, 1941, he carried wounded men, including the captain, and then manned a machine gun he had not been trained to fire. The Navy Cross came in 1942. The country needed the photograph. He had already done the work.

He was killed on November 24, 1943, when a Japanese submarine sank the escort carrier Liscome Bay off Makin. The ship went down fast. His remains were not recovered. That is a combat death at sea, listed as killed in action, not a missing-in-action finding, and this register will not relabel it.

He was born October 12, 1919. A future aircraft carrier carries the name. This page is the morning on Battleship Row and the later morning the carrier did not come back.