WACO — As part of Navy Week, Navy Rear Admiral and Waco native James Bynum laid a wreath Wednesday morning at the city's memorial for Doris Miller, who served in the Navy during WWII. In memory of Doris Miller, a painting was laid along with the wreath.
"When he was called upon for his time and his challenge, December 7, 1941, stopped doing his menial job of laundry and sprang into action and was recognized for that great service to save his ship and save his shipmates above and beyond what was expected," said Rear Admiral James Bynum, Chief of Naval Air Training.
Born in Waco, Miller was on the Nevada-class battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. He tended to wounded sailors and the ship's fatally wounded captain before manning a 50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun that he fired relentlessly until it ran out of ammunition -- at which point he was ordered to abandon ship. The late Admiral Chester W. Nimitz personally presented Miller with the Navy Cross for his extraordinary courage.
Bynum is also a Waco native.
"You know I read about Dorie Miller as a young boy and I noted, oh yea, he's from Waco too. But the real significance didn't come til much later," the Rear Admiral said.
Dr. Don Risinger commissioned a painting for Bynum, with both Admiral Chester Nimitz and Miller.
"We had various old black and white photos of this happening on board the USS Enterprise so I commissioned a black artist called Burle Washington to do this update," he explained.
The hero took care of the mortally wounded captain of the USS West Virginia and manned the machine guns to shoot down the Japanese planes. In that time, African Americans in the military were not trained in combat. And on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's death, one woman said Miller helped start that civil rights revolution.
"He did that on instinct and that really is the beginning of equality in the Navy," said Doreen Ravenscroft, a representative of the Cultural Arts of Waco.
"Waco has to feel the history today," said Bettie Beard, one of Miller's relatives who attended the wreath ceremony.
Miller died when a Japanese torpedo struck and sunk the Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56) during Operation Galvanic in the Gilbert Islands in 1943. Miller received a Purple Heart.
Watch the wreath-laying below.
