Myths and Misconceptions

Unsupported

1. “He shot down four Japanese aircraft”

Also given as two, three, five and six. The Navy credited him with none. The Secretary of the Navy’s commendation of 30 March 1942 does not mention aircraft at all; the Navy Cross citation says the gun was “directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft” but claims no result. No officer’s statement in the action report claims one.

The figure of four appears in Texas House Resolution 1138 of 1997 and in a 1975 speech by Ronald Reagan. The Handbook of Texas describes the plane claims as unverified and almost certainly apocryphal. Full evidence →

False

2. “He had never touched a gun in his life”

This is a newspaper sentence, not a fact. It originates in press coverage of December 1941 — a story in the New York Times of 22 December 1941 quoted an unnamed naval officer saying the sailor “never before had fired a gun.” The Navy had not released Miller’s name at that point and the officer was not identified.

It is also probably wrong on the facts. Miller is reported to have attended Secondary Battery Gunnery School during temporary duty aboard USS Nevada in July 1940. That report is itself single-sourced and this site flags it as such — but a claim sourced to one magazine article still outranks a claim sourced to an anonymous quotation in a wire story.

False

3. “He was awarded the Medal of Honor”

He was not, and he has not been. He received the Navy Cross on 27 May 1942. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s roster of recipients for 7 December 1941 does not include him.

Bills to award it have been introduced repeatedly — H.R. 5549 in the 116th Congress, H.R. 1251 in the 118th, and H.R. 2335 in the 119th, introduced by Rep. Kweisi Mfume on 25 March 2025. All were referred to the House Armed Services Committee. None has passed. The full legislative history →

False

4. “His heroism desegregated the Navy”

It did not. The Navy opened general service to Black enlisted men on 1 June 1942 — a policy change driven by manpower demands and sustained political pressure, of which the campaign around Miller was one part among many. The armed forces were formally desegregated by Executive Order 9981 in July 1948, five years after Miller’s death.

The claim is often attributed to a president. It was made in 1975 by Ronald Reagan, who was not president at the time — he had left the governorship of California that January and did not take office until 1981. The president in 1975 was Gerald Ford. No presidential proclamation or public statement making this claim exists in the Public Papers of the Presidents for 1975.

False

5. “He was a cook” — on 7 December 1941

On the day of the attack he was a Mess Attendant Second Class, as the action report records. He was advanced to Mess Attendant First Class at some point before 30 March 1942, when the Secretary of the Navy’s letter addresses him by that rating, and became Ship’s Cook Third Class in 1943. All three are correct for different dates. Sources that flatten them into one rank are wrong about at least two-thirds of his service.

True

6. “He helped carry his mortally wounded captain”

Documented. Lieutenant (jg) F. H. White’s statement describes four men, Miller among them, carrying Captain Mervyn Bennion aft and up to the navigation bridge, out of the flames. Bennion died there. Both the Secretary of the Navy’s commendation and the Navy Cross citation record that Miller assisted in moving his captain to a place of greater safety.

Unsupported

7. “He carried the captain to safety on his own”

The stronger version of the claim above, and the documents do not support it. White’s account is explicit that four men carried Bennion. A separate statement by Lieutenant Commander Johnson records that he brought a “colored mess attendant…a very powerfully built individual” up to the signal bridge with the specific idea that the man might carry the captain below — but Johnson does not name him, and the identification with Miller, though very likely, is an inference.

False

8. “His name was Dorie”

His name was Doris. “Dorie” was a nickname used by shipmates and adopted widely by the press — the 1943 Office of War Information poster gives it as “Dorie Miller.” The Navy’s own correspondence, including the Secretary of the Navy’s letter, uses Doris, and so does the Naval Vessel Register for the carrier named after him. This site uses Doris.

False

9. “The Dorie Miller housing project was in Chicago”

The Dorie Miller Cooperative Houses are in Corona–East Elmhurst, Queens, New York, built between 1950 and 1953 — six towers housing 301 families, and notable as a rare racially integrated development of its period. Residents included Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Jimmy Heath and Clark Terry.

Unsupported

10. “There is a memorial to him at Pearl Harbor”

This site could find no monument, plaque or permanent exhibit dedicated to Miller at Pearl Harbor National Memorial, the USS Arizona Memorial or on Ford Island. The National Park Service’s own page profiling people of the attack does not list him.

What did happen at Pearl Harbor was an event, not a memorial: the naming ceremony for the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) on 20 January 2020. The permanent memorial is in Waco. Memorials →

True, but the wording matters

11. “CVN-81 is the first carrier named for an enlisted sailor”

The Navy’s own press release of 20 January 2020 is more careful than the popular paraphrase. It says CVN-81 will be “the first aircraft carrier to be named in honor of a Sailor for actions while serving in the enlisted ranks” — which is not the same as the first named for an enlisted sailor. The release separately states, without qualification, that it is the first aircraft carrier ever named for an African American. Quote the Navy’s sentence, not the shorthand.

Contested, and not by us

12. “683 men died on USS Liscome Bay”

Three official U.S. Navy sources give three different figures. The contemporaneous War Damage Report No. 45 says 702 killed. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships says 683 lost and 265 rescued. The National Museum of the U.S. Navy says 646 lost and 272 rescued. DANFS and the museum are both publications of the Naval History and Heritage Command, and they contradict each other.

This site does not pick one. It reports the range — 646 to 702 — and names the source of each. The ships →