Nice shooting, Doris.
Posted on 12/07/2021 8:32:32 AM PST by re_tail20
Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller is an American hero, the first Black sailor to earn the Navy Cross.
On Dec. 7, 1941, under fire, he helped move the mortally wounded commander of the battleship West Virginia to safety and then manned a machine gun -- a weapon he was barred from training with because of his race -- to fire at attacking aircraft.
A sign at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial visitors center says Miller died on the USS Liscombe Bay in 1944 at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Miller actually died the year before, 1943, on the USS Liscome Bay, at the Battle of Makin Island.
The error about an icon for the civil rights movement, whose name will adorn a future Ford-class aircraft carrier, is one of several at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial that simply drive historians and history buffs nuts.
At least one is working to get them fixed.
"I've been tilting at this windmill since 2013," said former Navy aviator and retired Capt. Charlie Gillman. "How many thousands of people have to see these things and they're wrong?"
In addition to the Miller blunder, there are mistakes in photos: a 1941 photo of a Navy PBY Catalina aircraft that is dated as being from 1943 and a photo of the Japanese carrier Shokaku from the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942 that is mislabeled as the Akagi, taken on Dec. 7, 1941.
Some photos are missing captions; others are incorrectly labeled or don't properly illustrate the display. And the USS Arizona’' memorial wall contains five names that don't have ranks or rates.
"What does it take to get these guys to fix these things?" Gillman asked during an interview with Military.com. "If they asked for money, perhaps they think they're putting themselves on report for...
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
Totally cool.
A Navy ship named after a black guy who was there and who shot back, whether he was supposed to or not...
Nice shooting, Doris.
That honor will more than offset the mistake.
Cook Third Class Doris Miller’s Navy Cross Citation.
CITATION: “For distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. While at the side of his Captain on the bridge, Miller, despite enemy strafing and bombing and in the face of a serious fire, assisted in moving his Captain, who had been mortally wounded, to a place of greater safety, and later manned and operated a machine gun directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft until ordered to leave the bridge.”
Miller displayed bravery and ingenuity on December 7. I am not sure that that rises to his name being on a CVN. a Destroyer yes, but not a CVN.
Good night, Gracie.
Why not????
Much better than USS CLINTON, OBAMA or any other politician.
Now, back to biz:
The Sinking of USS Liscome Bay | posted in History Up Close on November 24, 2014
Shōkaku and Cavalla, a Confrontation of the WWII Pacific Theater
May 17, 2019 | The History Guy: History Deserves to Be RememberedIn June 1944, one of the largest, most modern and most important ships in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Shōkaku, encountered a US submarine, Cavalla, out on its first patrol. The History Guy remembers a WWII confrontation in the Pacific Theater. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As images of actual events are sometimes not available, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
This episode covers a period of conflict. All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.
('Civ footnote: the Japanese attack on the US on December 7, 1941, was the most stupid military error in all of WWII, and maybe in the history of warfare. It eclipses even Hitler's Operation Barbarrosa invasion of the USSR, and by a large margin. By the end of the war, our US Navy had *28* aircraft carriers, plus 71 escort carriers, 232 subs, plus 23 battleships, and nearly 6600 more ships of all kinds. US entry into the war also resulted in the construction of more than 30,000 tanks, and a couple hundred thousand aircraft, and lest we forget, about ten percent of the US population in uniform in some capacity, plus an industrial capacity dwarfing the entire Axis powers'.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, with only three carriers left (one, the Yorktown, had nearly had it, but was repaired in just eight days, rushed back to action with a valiant crew), planes with inferior flight radius, air-launched torpedoes that were POS, but with codebreaking guile, superior intel, and justifiably legendary commanders going for it, at the Battle of Midway, American warriors obliterated the Japanese’ superior reach.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=midway+lecture
Stealin’ it.
How complicated can it be to change a caption on a picture?
If say better than either Kennedy or Ford as well.
“I am not sure that that rises to his name being on a CVN. a Destroyer yes, but not a CVN.”
Let me explain; he’s black.
My FIL was an aircraft mechanic on the Corregidor, a sister ship of the Liscomb Bay. They were the lightly armored “Jeep Carriers”, built after the start of the war. His battle position was on an anti-aircraft gun on the side of the deck. The two carriers were close together during this battle.
During the battle, my FIL saw a fan of torpedoes heading toward both ships. None of them hit the Corregidor, but one hit the Liscomb Bay, and exploded its magazine. She sank in minutes.
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