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| A memorial service for a Pearl Harbor veteran inside the Arizona Memorial. |
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That makes it
a very big deal. It is undoubtedly the last time that any of the aged
and ailing survivors of the attack, now all nearing or past 100 years
old will be alive to attend the annual
ceremonies conducted at the Arizona
Memorial built over the sunken
battleship USS Arizona. In recent years some Japanese
veterans of the attack have attended the December 7 commemorations. This year with
some delicacy Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive
in Hawaii the Day after Christmas to meet with President Barak Obama who annually spends the holidays in his childhood home state. Together the two leaders will also visit the
Memorial when Abe will toss a memorial
wreath into the bay where leaking oil from the battle wagon still bubbles to the surface. The gesture will reciprocate Obama’s solemn participation
in commemorations of the dropping of
the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima last
year. Like the President, Abe will express sorrow and sympathy to the dead and
maimed but will stop well short of an apology
for military action.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Army installations on Oahu including Hickam Field and Schofield
Barracks was indeed the Day of
Infamy described by Franklin
Roosevelt in his call for a declaration
of war the next day. It was also one
of the pivot points of American history and a burning memory for anyone alive and aware at the time.
I’m betting you
know at least the rough details of that catastrophe, so this post is not going
to detail them. If not, look it up.
What I do want to do today is account for one man, tell his story, and through him the
story of African Americans in the United States Navy.
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| The battleships USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee burn after the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor. |
When the attack was over that Sunday
morning, December 7, 1941, the pride of
the Pacific Fleet, including its
great battleships lay sunken, smoldering, and heavily
damaged. More than 1500 were dead,
thousands wounded. It was a naval disaster of epic proportions, perfectly
executed by the Japanese Imperial Navy
and but for the absence of the
Fleet’s two aircraft carriers very
nearly the knockout blow that was intended.
The scope of the disaster was kept
from the American people, but became apparent. Followed closely by the loss of Wake Island, and the besieging of the
Army at Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, prospects for
the US against the Empire of the Sun
looked bleak.
To buck up sagging morale at home, authorities sought to play up the bravery of those who fought
and died that morning. They began publicly handing out medals and citations as part of that campaign.
15 Medals of Honor were
presented, all to Navy personnel, the biggest
crop of such awards at one time in the service’s
history.
Ten of the awards were posthumous. Eight went to officers, including Rear
Admiral Isaac Kidd, Commander of
Battleship Division One on board the
USS
Arizona and to Captain Mervyn
Sharp of the USS West Virginia and Captain
Van Valkenburg of the Arizona who
were presented the award by simply being
on the bridge and in command when
killed. All of the recipients,
living or dead were white.
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| Dorie Miller in action on December 7,1941. |
All brave men, no doubt. But acts of heroism at least as great went unrewarded by the nation’s highest honor
that day. Take the case of Ships Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller.
Miller was born in Waco, Texas on October 19, 1919. He was one of three brothers. He grew up
working on his father’s farm, but
unlike many young black men managed to remain
in school through High School where he played football and excelled in sports. Leaving school as the Depression lingered, Dorie decided to enlist in the Navy in 1939 to earn money to help support his family
and also for a bit of adventure far away from home.
He had few options in the Navy, which was then strictly segregated and had even barred Blacks from enlisting
at all from 1919 to 1932. When
recruitment resumed, the only positions
opened to them were as messmates, cooks, and stewards—personal servants for officers.
It had not always been so. Blacks had served virtually without restriction, except for officer status,
from the dawn of American naval service. Many, both free and slave, were experienced sailors in the coastal
trades, fishing, whaling and even trans-Atlantic trades. After
the war began they served on privateers,
in the infant Continental Navy, and in the navies of the various states. Not only ordinary
seamen, their ranks included ships
carpenters, pilots, navigators, mates, and gunners. At least one rose to officer’s rank and
command, Capt. Mark Starlin of the Virginia Navy. Despite command of the Patriot during the war,
Starlin was returned to slavery
afterwards.
Blacks served in the largely naval War of 1812 and were estimated to make up about 15% of all sailors
in the antebellum Navy.
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| White and Black sailor mixed on the deck of the USS Miami during the Civil War. |
Black
enlistment exploded during the Civil
War, including many escaped or former slaves. Eight were awarded the Medal of Honor during
that conflict. They also served in the Spanish American War, notching another
couple of Medal citations, and in the Great
White Fleet.
But by the turn of the 20th Century Jim Crow began to infiltrate
the service, now dominated by officers of Southern birth.
Although all ratings were
officially open to blacks, most were steered into servile positions. Only long
serving old tars were allowed to
remain in skilled positions. When the
emergency of World War I passed, the Navy suspended
black enlistment entirely allowing only men on duty in 1919 to remain until
retirement.
That was the Navy Dorie Miller
joined. He entered the Navy as Mess Attendant Third Class—essentially
a waiter and dishwasher. After boot camp at Norfolk, Virginia he was assigned to sea duty on the ammunition
ship USS Pyro. He was diligent, hardworking, and popular
with officers and men. He advanced relatively rapidly up the
ranks and was soon Mess Attendant First
Class.
In January 1940 he got a plum birth
on the USS West Virginia. Over
six feet tall and a muscular 200
lbs. plus, Miller became Heavy
weight boxing champ of the ship at a time when boxing was a highly competitive event in the Navy
and closely followed by officers and men alike.
Later that year he was allowed to
take training at the Secondary Gunnery
School on board the USS Nevada.
Soon after returning to the West
Virginia he was promoted once again, this time to Ship’s Cook Third Class.
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| Dorrie Miller on a souvenir button distributed in Black communities. |
Miller was on duty Sunday morning collecting
laundry from the mess when the attack
began. He immediately responded to his battle station where
he was assigned as an ammunition passer to the antiaircraft battery magazine amidships. Discovering the magazine destroyed by a torpedo
blast, Miller reported to the deck
where using his enormous strength he
carried many wounded men to greater
safety, often entering burning
compartments to do so.
Then he was called to the bridge where he carried the fatally wounded future Medal of Honor winner
Captain Sharp. With the bridge out of commission and confusion all around him, Miller found
an unmanned 50 caliber Browning
anti-aircraft machine gun.
Despite having no training on the weapon, he began
firing at the still attacking Japanese aircraft. “It wasn’t hard,” he would later recall. “I
just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with
these guns. I guess I fired her for about fifteen minutes. I think I got one of
those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.”
Despite his modesty, other witnesses testified that he brought down three, maybe
four of the attacking aircraft. He abandoned his gun only when he was out of ammunition.
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| Miller was featured on a widely distributed Navy recruitment poster. |
Miller went on to
serve aboard the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay. He was lost
and presumed dead when a Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank the carrier in the Gilbert Islands on November 24, 1943.
On June 23, 1973
the Navy commissioned the Knox Class Destroyer Escort the USS
Miller in his memory. She was
latter reconfigured and reclassified as a frigate and was in Navy
Reserve service until she was decommissioned
in 1991
He was portrayed
by Elven Havard in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! and Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2001 movie epic
Pearl
Harbor.
In 1945, just
before her first collection of poems was
published the young Chicagoan
Gwendolyn Brooks had this printed in Common Ground, a periodical featuring Black writers.
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| Young Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem in Dorie Miller's voice. |
Negro Hero (To suggest Dorie Miller)
I had to kick their law into their teeth in order to save them. However, I have heard that sometimes
you have to deal Devilishly with drowning men in order
to swim them to shore
Or they will haul
themselves and you to the trash
and the fish beneath.
(When I think of this, I do not worry about a few Chipped teeth.)
It is good I gave glory, it
is good I put gold on their
name Or there would have been spikes in the afterward hands.
But let us speak only of
my success and the pictures in the Caucasian dailies
As well as the
Negro weeklies. For I am a gem.
(They are not concerned that it was hardly The Enemy my fight was against
But them.)
It was a tall
time. And of course my blood was
Boiling about in my head and
straining and bowling and
singing me on. Of course I was
rolled on wheels of my boy itch to get at the gun.
Of course all the delicate
rehearsal shots of my
childhood massed in mirage before me.
Of course I was
child
And my first swallow
of the liquor of
battle bleeding black air
dying and demon noise
Made me wild.
It was kinder than that, though,
and I showed like a banner my kindness.
I loved. And a man will guard when he loves. Their white-gowned
democracy was my fair lady
With her knife lying cold, straight, in the softness of her sweet-flowing sleeve.
But for the sake of the dear smiling mouth and the stuttered promise I toyed with my life.
I threw back!—would not remember
Entirely the knife.
Still—am I good enough to die for them, is my
blood bright enough to be spilled,
Was my constant back-question—are they clear
on this? Or do I intrude even now?
Am I clean enough to kill for them, do they wish me to kill
For them
or is my place
while death licks
his lips and
strides to them
In
the galley still.
(In a southern city a
white man said
Indeed, I’d rather be dead.
Indeed, I’d rather be shot in
the head
Or ridden to waste on the back of a Hood
Than
saved by the drop of a black man’s blood.)
Naturally, the important
thing is, I helped to save
them,
them and a part of
their democracy,
Even if I had to kick their law into their teeth in
order to do that for them.
And I am feeling well and settled in
myself because I believe it was a good job,
Despite this possible horror: that
they might prefer the
Preservation
of their law in all its sick dignity and their knives
To the continuation of their creed And their
lives.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
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