Doris Miller, born and raised in Waco, Texas, enlisted with the Navy as a mess attendant in 1939 at the age of twenty. This was one of the few positions available at the time to African-American sailors in the country’s segregated military. Within four months, he was assigned to the battleship USS West Virginia, stationed at Pearl Harbor.

On the fateful day of December 7, 1941, Doris Miller was collecting laundry when Japanese aircraft attacked. This ship’s commanding officer, Captain Mervin Bennion, was hit in the stomach with shrapnel. Doris Miller dragged his captain to a place of greater safety. Then, without any prior training, Miller manned a machine gun on the ship’s deck. He shot down at least three of the twenty-nine Japanese planes that were lost by the attackers that day, and Miller may have hit up to four others according to military eyewitness accounts of the battle.

Doris Miller continued to serve his country in the U.S. Navy during World War II. However, in 1943, he and 654 shipmates were killed in the line of duty when the Japanese sank the aircraft carrier USS Liscome Bay in the Gilbert Islands.

Unfortunately, like other African-Americans who served in the military during World War II, Doris Miller’s acts of valor have never been fully recognized, and some of the awards that were bestowed were only given grudgingly. Initially, Doris Miller’s actions were not publicized until three months after the Pearl Harbor attack. Since then, he has been given a letter citation by the secretary of the U.S. Navy and awarded the Navy Cross following public campaigns by Civil Rights organizations that brought about critical attention in the press. However, Doris Miller has not yet been decorated with the nation’s highest honor—the Congressional Medal of Honor. In fact, no African-American who served in World War II received the Congressional Medal of Honor until seven army veterans were given the award 1997.

Currently, legislation will soon be introduced in order to posthumously award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Doris Miller for his heroic actions during World War II, so that a long-awaited honor may finally be bestowed upon this deserving individual. This recognition is long overdue to a man who served his country with distinction and who performed valiantly during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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