Doris Miller, the first African American hero of World War II, was born in Willow Grove.

In addition to playing football, he supplemented the family income by working as a cook in a small restaurant in Waco during the Great Depression.
As his family’s fortunes worsened, he considered joining the Civilian Conservation Corps or the army but encountered obstacles to each of these plans.

Less than a month before his 20th birthday, Miller enlisted in the United States Navy at its Dallas recruiting station. Following bootcamp training in Norfolk, Virginia, he was assigned to the USS West Virginia as a messman.

On this day in 1941, Mess Attendant Second Class Doris Miller was collecting soiled laundry just before 8 a.m. When the first bombs blasted his ship at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Miller went to the main deck, where he assisted in moving the mortally wounded captain.

He then raced to an unattended deck gun and fired at the attacking planes until forced to abandon ship. It was Miller’s first experience firing such a weapon because black sailors serving in the segregated steward’s branch of the Navy were not given the gunnery training received by white sailors.

Miller himself told Navy officials he thought he hit one of the planes. Navy officials conferred the Navy Cross upon Miller on May 27, 1942, in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor.

Following a Christmas leave in 1942, when he saw his home and family in Waco for the last time, Miller reported to duty aboard the aircraft carrier Liscome Bay (or Liscomb Bay) as a mess attendant.
During the battle of the Gilbert Islands, on November 24, 1943, his ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Pacific Ocean, and Miller perished. In addition to conferring upon him the Navy Cross, the Navy honored Doris Miller by naming a dining hall, a barracks, and a destroyer escort for him. The USS Miller is the third naval ship to be named after an African American Navy man.

Source: Texas State Historical Association