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Doris Miller

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Miller was doing laundry below decks on the USS West Virginia. When the alarm called the ship’s crew to battle sta­tions, Miller headed a gun maga­zine amidships. A torpedo had dam­aged the magazine, so the phy­si­cally strong Miller began car­rying the wounded to safety. Among those he attended to was the ship’s commander, Capt. Mervyn Bennion, who was mor­tally wounded. Miller then man­ned a .50-calibre anti­air­craft gun, for which he had no train­ing, and continued firing on the enemy until he ran out of am­mu­ni­tion and received the order to abandon ship.

Miller’s actions during the attack earned him a commendation from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and the Navy Cross, which was presented to him personally by Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, on May 27, 1942. Miller died in 1943 when a torpedo sank his ship, the escort car­rier Liscome Bay, off Butaritari Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. On June 30, 1973, the navy commissioned a frigate, the USS Miller, in his honour. -SOURCE-

USS West Virginia

Ford Island

Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island shortly after the beginning of the Pearl Harbor attack. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance. A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California. On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier. Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port. Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right. U.S. Navy planes on the seaplane ramp are on fire. Japanese writing in the lower right states that the photograph was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry. -SOURCE-