Doris Miller - Attack On Pearl Harbor

Attack On Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, Miller awoke at 0600. After serving breakfast mess, he was collecting laundry when the first of nine torpedoes to hit the West Virginia was launched at 0757 by Lt. Commander Shigeharu Murata of the Japanese carrier Akagi. Miller headed for his battle station, an antiaircraft battery magazine amidship, only to discover that torpedo damage had destroyed it.

He went instead to "Times Square", a central spot where the fore to aft and port to starboard passageways crossed, and reported himself available for other duty. Miller was spotted by Lieutenant Commander Doir C. Johnson, the ship's communications officer, who ordered the powerfully built sailor to accompany him to the bridge to assist with moving the ship's Captain Mervyn Bennion, who had a gaping wound in his abdomen where he had apparently been hit by shrapnel. Miller and another sailor lifted the skipper and, unable to remove him from the bridge, carried him from an exposed position on the damaged bridge to a sheltered spot behind the conning tower. The Captain refused to leave his post and questioned his officers about the condition of the ship, giving various orders. The Captain remained on the bridge until his death.

White ordered Miller to help him and Ensign Victor Delano load the unmanned #1 and #2 Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine guns aft of the conning tower. Miller wasn't familiar with the machine gun, but White and Delano told him what to do. Miller had served both men as a room steward and knew them well. Delano expected Miller to feed ammunition to one gun, but his attention was diverted, and when he looked again Miller was firing one of the guns. White had loaded ammo into both guns and assigned Miller the starboard gun.

Miller said later "I think I got one" and has been variously credited with shooting down from one to six Japanese planes that day, although official Navy records do not credit anyone on board the West Virginia with shooting down any aircraft that day. Only the nearby Maryland was credited with shooting down a Japanese plane in their area.

Miller fired the gun until he ran out of ammo, when he was ordered by Lieutenant Claude V. Ricketts along with Lt. White and Chief Signalman A.A. Siewart to help Miller carry the Captain up to the navigation bridge out of the thick oily smoke generated by the many fires on and around the ship. Bennion was only partially conscious at this point and died soon after. Japanese aircraft eventually dropped two armor-piercing bombs through the deck of the battleship and launched five 18 in (460 mm) aircraft torpedoes into her port side. When the attack finally lessened, Lieutenant Frederic H. White ordered Miller to help move injured sailors through oil and water to the quarterdeck, thereby "unquestionably saving the lives of a number of people who might otherwise have been lost."

Heavily damaged by the bombs, torpedoes and following explosions, the crew prevented the ship from capsizing by counter-flooding a number of compartments, and the West Virginia sank to the harbor bottom as her crew—including Miller—abandoned ship.