Arlington’s recent commemoration of World War II hero Doris “Dorie” Miller came with a homework assignment.
Miller, from whom one of Arlington’s American Legion posts takes name, was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. But likely owing to the prevailing racial attitudes of the time, he did not receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration.
Glenn Yarborough thinks that needs to change.
The retired U.S. Army colonel, who spoke at the Friday (Oct. 11) Dorie Miller Day commemoration ceremony at the Arlington government headquarters, urged members of American Legion Dorie Miller Post 194 and Auxiliary to team up with the other American Legion posts named to honor Miller around the U.S. on a combined mission.
The goal: Convince national leaders in coming months to bestow the honor retroactively.
“The political climate is just right,” Yarborough said. “It needs to be done. I will help you.”
Yarborough’s proposal would have a precedent. In recent years, more than two dozen Medals of Freedom have been awarded retroactively to men who were denied them during the war due to their race, ethnicity or religion, according to the National World War II Museum.
The proposition made sense to DeWanda Mintz, a past post commander, who spoke at the Oct. 11 event.
“Now is the time,” she said.
The ceremony, held in the Arlington County Board room, was the second annual. It was presided over by Post 194 Commander Clarence Buchanan and drew American Legion officers from across the region.
Miller, the son of Texas sharecroppers, joined the U.S. Navy at age 20, just prior to World War II. He served in the enlisted ranks, preparing and serving meals and performing similar tasks in a military that remained rigidly segregated until 1948.
“The Navy was not the friendliest for a young African-American,” Mintz noted.
When the Japanese surprise attack occurred on at dawn Dec. 7, 1941, Miller was a crew member aboard the battleship USS West Virginia, like many other ships tied up and essentially a sitting duck.
Collecting laundry below decks at the moment of the attack, Miller ended up on deck and took over operation of a machine gun — his first time ever to use one.
Though the exact total will never be known, Miller is believed to have shot down at least one and perhaps as many as six Japanese planes that day. Several months later, he was awarded the Navy Cross by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Miller died aged 24 in 1943 during the Battle of Makin when his ship, the escort aircraft carrier USS Liscome Bay, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Most of his more than 900 shipmates also were killed in the most deadly attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier in history.
In 1946, when African-American war veterans opted to establish their own American Legion post in still-segregated Arlington, they chose the name of Miller for it.
The goal was to preserve “the memory and the inspiration” of its namesake, said Ardella Lockett, president of the post’s auxiliary. Other Dorie Miller posts dot the nation, from New York to California.
Yarborough said that through the decades, Post 194 and Auxiliary have provided exceptional service to veterans and the community.
“This post is a kind of model, where teamwork means so much,” he said.
At the event, Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington) presented a framed copy of a Virginia General Assembly resolution declaring Oct. 12 to be “Dorie Miller Day” across the commonwealth. It was adopted during the 2024 session.
To honor Miller, the U.S. Navy in the 1970s named a destroyer in his honor; it was retired from service in 1991. A nuclear-powered aircraft carrier slated for commissioning in 2032 will carry his name. Construction work on the $14 billion project has begun in Newport News; it will be the first aircraft carrier named to honor an enlisted man and the first to honor an African-American.
