Doris Miller

Black sailors in the segregated steward's branch were not given gunnery training, the Handbook of Texas says, so Miller was firing a deck gun for the first time. Press stories credited him with two to five planes; the Handbook calls those accounts unverified and almost certainly apocryphal, and notes that he thought he hit one. Before the Navy he cooked in a small Waco restaurant, and his path into the Civilian Conservation Corps or the army met obstacles. Miller was born in Willow Grove. The carrier USS Doris Miller was named for him in 2020.

What the plaque says

Doris Miller Doris (Dorie) Miller was reared on a farm in McLennan County, Texas, and attended Waco's A.J. Moore High School. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the battleship "USS West Virginia" in 1940. The "West Virginia" was docked in Pearl Harbor when it was struck by a Japanese torpedo on December 7, 1941. Moments after the torpedo hit, an explosion on a nearby ship showered the "West Virginia's" deck with burning debris and flaming oil. Miller helped move his wounded captain to safety, then maneuvered through the flame-swept deck and took over a machine gun position. Though never trained as an aerial gunner, he confidently shot down four enemy aircraft. Miller reacted with such extraordinary skill and bravery in the defense of his ship that he became the first African American to receive the Navy Cross. Fellow Texan Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded him the Navy Cross on May 7, 1942. Miller died when his ship, the "USS Linscombe Bay," was torpedoed in 1943. The destroyer "USS Miller" was named in his honor in 1973. Miller, posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and honored by associations, cemeteries, parks, naval bases, and other organizations across the nation, is credited with helping break down the color barrier in the Navy. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Waco Suspension Bridge — 0.8 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 1.1 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 1.3 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 2.0 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• Paul Quinn College — steps away
• Toliver Chapel Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Jacob De Cordova — 0.9 mi
• Site of First Church Building in Waco — 0.9 mi