Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement

Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement PDF Author: Thomas W. Cutrer
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623496039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
On the morning of December 7, 1941, after serving breakfast and turning his attention to laundry services aboard the USS West Virginia, Ship’s Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller heard the alarm calling sailors to battle stations. The first of several torpedoes dropped from Japanese aircraft had struck the American battleship. Miller hastily made his way to a central point and was soon called to the bridge by Lt. Com. Doir C. Johnson to assist the mortally wounded ship’s captain, Mervyn Bennion. Miller then joined two others in loading and firing an unmanned anti-aircraft machine gun—a weapon that, as an African American in a segregated military, Miller had not been trained to operate. But he did, firing the weapon on attacking Japanese aircraft until the .50-caliber gun ran out of ammunition. For these actions, Miller was later awarded the Navy Cross, the third-highest naval award for combat gallantry. Historians Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish have not only painstakingly reconstructed Miller’s inspiring actions on December 7. They also offer for the first time a full biography of Miller placed in the larger context of African American service in the United States military and the beginnings of the civil rights movement. Like so many sailors and soldiers in World War II, Doris Miller’s life was cut short. Just two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller was aboard the USS Liscome Bay when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine. But the name—and symbolic image—of Dorie Miller lived on. As Cutrer and Parrish conclude, “Dorie Miller’s actions at Pearl Harbor, and the legend that they engendered, were directly responsible for helping to roll back the navy’s then-to-fore unrelenting policy of racial segregation and prejudice, and, in the chain of events, helped to launch the civil rights movement of the 1960s that brought an end to the worst of America’s racial intolerance.”

Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement

Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement PDF Author: Thomas W. Cutrer
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623496039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
On the morning of December 7, 1941, after serving breakfast and turning his attention to laundry services aboard the USS West Virginia, Ship’s Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller heard the alarm calling sailors to battle stations. The first of several torpedoes dropped from Japanese aircraft had struck the American battleship. Miller hastily made his way to a central point and was soon called to the bridge by Lt. Com. Doir C. Johnson to assist the mortally wounded ship’s captain, Mervyn Bennion. Miller then joined two others in loading and firing an unmanned anti-aircraft machine gun—a weapon that, as an African American in a segregated military, Miller had not been trained to operate. But he did, firing the weapon on attacking Japanese aircraft until the .50-caliber gun ran out of ammunition. For these actions, Miller was later awarded the Navy Cross, the third-highest naval award for combat gallantry. Historians Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish have not only painstakingly reconstructed Miller’s inspiring actions on December 7. They also offer for the first time a full biography of Miller placed in the larger context of African American service in the United States military and the beginnings of the civil rights movement. Like so many sailors and soldiers in World War II, Doris Miller’s life was cut short. Just two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller was aboard the USS Liscome Bay when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine. But the name—and symbolic image—of Dorie Miller lived on. As Cutrer and Parrish conclude, “Dorie Miller’s actions at Pearl Harbor, and the legend that they engendered, were directly responsible for helping to roll back the navy’s then-to-fore unrelenting policy of racial segregation and prejudice, and, in the chain of events, helped to launch the civil rights movement of the 1960s that brought an end to the worst of America’s racial intolerance.”

Dorie Miller

Dorie Miller PDF Author: Dante R. Brizill
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986420211
Category : Local author
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
The story of December 7th, 1941 is very familiar to us. It changed the history of this country and the world, but few people may know of the story of Dorie Miller the African-American cook who was stationed on the USS West Virginia at the time of the attack at Pearl Harbor . He was the ship's cook, but on December 7th 1941, he showed his crewmates and his country that he was capable of much more. This is his remarkable story of courage under fire.

Doris Miller

Doris Miller PDF Author: Bill O'Neal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934645017
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
Doris Miller fought bravely against Japanese attackers at Pearl Harbor. The young African-American from Texas was one of the first sailors to earn the Navy Cross during WWII.

The Port Chicago 50

The Port Chicago 50 PDF Author: Steve Sheinkin
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1596437960
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Describes the fifty black sailors who refused to work in unsafe and unfair conditions after an explosion in Port Chicago killed 320 servicemen, and how the incident influenced civil rights.

African American World War II Casualties and Decorations in the Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine

African American World War II Casualties and Decorations in the Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine PDF Author: Glenn A. Knoblock
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
"This book is an account of the 2,445 African American men who were killed, wounded or decorated during World War II in the Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine. In addition to detailing the circumstances and location of each loss, information of a more personal nature is often included. The book includes many pictures of the men profiled"--Provided by publisher.

Red Ball Express

Red Ball Express PDF Author: Dante Rashaun Brizill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
These unsung heroes from World War II drove the trucks that supplied the American Army's in Europe. Three out of four of these men were African-American. After the Normandy campaign, a supply crisis arose, as the Allies pursued the German army across France and closer to Germany. Due to the destruction of the French rail and road network, and the fierce German defense of the French ports, a supply crisis quickly arose. The American army's outran their supplies. A solution had to be found quickly. Enter the Red Ball Express. All heroes don't wear capes. Some drive trucks.

Fighting for America

Fighting for America PDF Author: Christopher Paul Moore
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0307415228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
The African-American contribution to winning World War II has never been celebrated as profoundly as in Fighting for America. In this inspirational and uniquely personal tribute, the essential part played by black servicemen and -women in that cataclysmic conflict is brought home. Here are letters, photographs, oral histories, and rare documents, collected by historian Christopher Moore, the son of two black WWII veterans. Weaving his family history with that of his people and nation, Moore has created an unforgettable tapestry of sacrifice, fortitude, and courage. From the 1,800 black soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on D-Day, and the legendary Tuskegee Airmen who won ninety-five Distinguished Flying Crosses, to the 761st Tank Battalion who, under General Patton, helped liberate Nazi death camps, the invaluable effort of black Americans to defend democracy is captured in word and image. Readers will be introduced to many unheralded heroes who helped America win the war, including Dorie Miller, the messman who manned a machine gun and downed four Japanese planes; Robert Brooks, the first American to die in armored battle; Lt. Jackie Robinson, the future baseball legend who faced court-martial for refusing to sit in the back of a military bus; an until now forgotten African-American philosopher who helped save many lives at a Japanese POW camp; even the author’s own parents: his mother, Kay, a WAC when she met his father, Bill, who was part of the celebrated Red Ball Express. Yet Fighting for America is more than a testimonial; it is also a troubling story of profound contradictions, of a country still in the throes of segregation, of a domestic battleground where arrests and riots occurred simultaneously with foreign service–and of how the war helped spotlight this disparity and galvanize the need for civil rights. Featuring a unique perspective on black soldiers, Fighting for America will move any reader: all who, like the author, owe their lives to those who served.

To Risk It All

To Risk It All PDF Author: Admiral James Stavridis, USN
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593297741
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
From one of the great naval leaders of our time, a master class in decision-making under pressure through the stories of nine famous acts of leadership in battle, drawn from the history of the United States Navy, with outcomes both glorious and notorious At the heart of Admiral James Stavridis’s training as a naval officer was the preparation to lead sailors in combat, to face the decisive moment in battle whenever it might arise. In To Risk it All, he offers up nine of the most useful and enthralling stories from the US Navy’s nearly 250-year history, and draws from them a set of insights that we can all put to use when confronted with fateful choices. Conflict. Crisis. Risk. These words have a distinct meaning in a military context that we hope will never apply identically in our own lives. But at the same time, as Admiral Stavridis shows with great clarity, many lessons are universal. To Risk it All is filled with thrilling and heroic exploits, but it is anything but a shallow exercise in myth burnishing. Every leader in this book has real flaws, as all humans do, and the stories of failure, or at least the decisions that have been defined as such, are as crucial as the stories of success. In the end, when this master class is concluded, we will be better armed for hard decisions both expected and not.

Never Call Me a Hero

Never Call Me a Hero PDF Author: N. Jack Kleiss
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062692364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

Courage in Combat

Courage in Combat PDF Author: Richard Rinaldo
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 9781612004563
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An anthology of pieces by and about the recipients of the United States' highest decorations, focusing on the theme of courage in combat.