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June 24, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kapiʻolani Home

“In fulfillment of the commands of His Majesty, and to carry out the views of my colleagues of the Board of Health and the community in the erection of a Home for leper girls, I now present to Your Majesty, as Lady Patroness of this benevolent institution, named after Your Majesty, the keys of this Home.” (Gibson, Dedication of Kapiʻolani Home, November 9, 1885)

“Queen Kapiʻolani took the keys in her hand and proceeded to the door leading into the refectory. She put a key, especially marked, into the door, unlocked it, and then, withdrawing the key, handed it to the Reverend Mother Superior, with the remark:”

“’I deliver these keys to you.’ The President of the Board of Health then said: ‘By command of His Majesty the King I declare the Home now open.’” (Dedication of Kapiʻolani Home, November 9, 1885)

Kapi‘olani had visited Kalaupapa in 1884 to learn how she could assist those who were diagnosed with leprosy and exiled there, and she raised the funds to build the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (KCC)

Queen Kapiʻolani, Father Damien de Veuster (now Saint Damien,) Dr Eduard Arning and Mother Marianne (now Saint Marianne) recognized the need for a home for the non-infected children of the leprosy patients.

On November 9, 1885, the healthy girls living in Kalawao moved into Kapiʻolani Home on the grounds of the sisters’ convent at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

“It will accommodate fifty inmates, besides the matron, and will be under the supervision and control of the Sisters of Charity, of whom there are now seven, including the Mother Superior attached to the Convent of their order, which is within the enclosure of the Branch Hospital.”

“The Home is a two-story building, on the mauka side of the Branch Hospital, and separated from it by a high fence. The building is 70 feet by 50 feet, and is surrounded by open-railed verandas, 10 feet wide, which furnish a cool and sheltered place for play in all weather.”

“On the ground floor, which is approached by a wide flight of steps to the lower veranda, are two store rooms, an office, class room and refectory. The last two are spacious rooms, well lighted and ventilated, the height of the ceiling being 13 feet 1 inch.
A wide flight of stairs on the outside loads to the upper floor, on which are situate two large dormitories, two bath rooms and matron’s room.”

“The arrangement of these dormitories deserves mention. The one on the mauka or land side, which is the breeziest, from the prevailing wind, will be occupied by girls who have developed the disease; the other will be occupied by girls who are as yet free from it, but who, having been born of leper parents, may be reasonably suspected of having the disease latent in their blood.”

“There will be no communication between these rooms. Separate closets and baths have been provided for each class of inmates. In this way it is hoped to minimize the risk of contagion, by preventing the clean breathing the same atmosphere with the unclean at night.”

“During the daytime, when there is a free circulation of air, the risk of contagion is so slight that it need hardly be estimated. At the same time it should be stated that no bad case of leprosy will be admitted to the Home, but only such as gives hopes of yielding to cleanliness, wholesome food, moderate exercise and kind and scientific treatment.”

“A notice of this kind would be incomplete were no mention made of the Branch Leper Hospital contiguous to the Home, and the noble Christian work performed therein by the Sisters of Charity. The Branch Hospital was established in 1881, and as in the case of the Leper Settlement at Molokai, it was not well managed at the outset, nor indeed, until after the arrival of the first party of the Sisters two years ago precisely yesterday.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 9, 1885)

“I had the honor to address the Bishop of Olba a letter, dated January 4, 1883, in which I informed His Lordship that the care of the sick poor of this Kingdom had most earnestly enlisted the sympathies of Their Majesties the King and Queen and awakened the solicitude of the Government) that they appreciated the necessity for trained and faithful nurses, and felt that nowhere could such invaluable assistance be obtained so readily as among the ranks of those blessed Sisterhoods of Charity, who have, in various parts of the earth devoted themselves to the care of the sick”. (Address by Gibson, President of the Board of Health)

From 50 other religious communities in the United States, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaii to care for people with Hansen’s Disease (known then as leprosy.)

The Sisters arrived in Hawaii on November 8, 1883, dedicating themselves to the care of the 200 lepers in Kaka‘ako Branch Hospital on Oahu. This hospital was built to accommodate 100 people, but housed more than 200 people. (Cathedral of Our lady of Peace)

Kapiʻolani Home was devoted to the care of non-leprous girls of leprous parents, not yet confirmed as lepers, and others suspected of the disease.

Under the care of the Franciscan Sisters, the government has provided a home for many little girls born of leper parents. It is exceedingly rare that a child inherits leprosy, and even where both parents are lepers, if the child be removed before it has become infected with the disease there is small danger of its developing leprosy.

These non-leprous children are generally taken from their parents when 2 years of age. Sometimes friends of the family provide for them, and in other cases they are taken to the home.

Girls, ranging from 2 to 20 years of age, who are not only given a good school education, but trained in such branches of domestic work as are necessary to fit them to become useful members of the community thereafter.

This home is for girls, and is insufficient to accommodate the present number of inmates comfortably. There is a necessity for a similar institution for boys and for enlarging the present capacity of the Kapiʻolani Home. (Hawaiian Commission, September 8, 1898) (A Boys Home was later built in Kalihi.)

After the hospital closed in 1888, the home was moved three times: first, to a more suitable new building adjacent to the Kalihi Receiving Station; second, to a temporary camp in Waiakamilo when a typhoid epidemic closed the previous home in 1900; finally, in 1912 to Kalihi where the patients’ children were housed until 1938. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

Mother Marianne died in Kalaupapa on August 9, 1918. The Sisters of St. Francis continue their work in Kalaupapa with victims of Hansen’s Disease. No sister has ever contracted the disease. (Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace)

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Gibson_and_Mother_Marianne_Cope-Kakaako_Leper_Detention_Center
Gibson_and_Mother_Marianne_Cope-Kakaako_Leper_Detention_Center
Kapiolani Girls Home-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-new_dormitory-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-new_dormitory-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-Sisters_Residence-1907
Kapiolani Girls Home-Sisters_Residence-1907
Queen Kapiolani Statue
Queen Kapiolani Statue
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth

Filed Under: General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Prominent People Tagged With: Oahu, Saint Marianne, Molokai, Kapiolani Home, Hawaii

June 23, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Red Hill Underground

Originally Top Secret, Red Hill’s hidden facility became generally known in the early-1990s, when the facility was declassified.

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor all of the Navy’s fuel was stored in unprotected above ground tanks at Pearl Harbor, next to the submarine base.

When RADM Chester Nimitz was Commander of the Bureau of Yards & Docks (in 1940) he wanted the Navy’s 2 ½-year supply of fuel oil protected from aerial attack – existing aboveground unprotected tanks next to the Submarine Base presented a vulnerable enemy target.

Standard practice was to dig a trench and bury the tanks, but this was impractical to store 255-million gallons of fuel oil; here, the Navy’s initial plan was to dig a series of tunnels and insert the tanks

Instead, consulting engineer James P Growden came up with excavating large vertical tank chambers instead of horizontal tunnels. (Nothing like this had ever been attempted before.)

This would increase the volume of material that could be excavated simultaneously and decrease the number of heavy equipment needed for hauling muck. It also decreased the unit cost for rock removal substantially.

Starting the day after Christmas 1940, 20 underground fuel storage tanks were built more that 100-feet below the surface. (The facility was designed as an impenetrable, bombproof reserve of fuel for the military.)

To determine the depth necessary to protect the fuel from Japanese aerial attack, the engineers gathered data from the Army, multiplied it four-fold and rounded the figure off to 100 feet of rock cover.

The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had little effect on the work site – work on the storage facility proceeded virtually without interruption.

Each vertical tank is 100 feet in diameter and 250 feet high, roughly the size of a 20-story building, and lined with quarter-inch steel plates (it has an overall design capacity of 6-million barrels of fuel oil (9.97-billion gallons.))

Dug from the inside, the storage facility is connected with pipes (32-inch-diameter diesel pipe, and 18- and 16-inch jet fuel pipes) and tunnels down to a Pearl Harbor pumping station, more than two-and-a-half miles away.

The tanks were set up in two parallel rows with two main access tunnels, one above the other, bisecting the rows; smaller tunnels branched from these main axis tunnels to the tank cavities.

The upper dome of each fuel chamber was excavated first, starting with a ring tunnel, then working upward, towards the central shaft. They started digging in the upper portion of each tank chamber.

Upon completing the ring tunnel, the miners dug upwards in a hemisphere from all points around the ring, narrowing as they reached the central shaft. As soon as the upper hemisphere was concreted, workers were lowered down the central shaft to begin excavation of the tank chamber.

The miners continued to dig downwards in a cone until they reached the lower hemisphere of the tank chamber; tThe lining for the lower hemisphere was placed similarly to the top.

Then, they steel-lined the walls of the tank chamber. Reinforced concrete was placed against the rock and smooth continuously welded steel plates formed the inner liner. (Rogers)

Think of the scenario: with limited above ground disturbance, hollowing out twenty 20-story building-sized cavities 100-feet underground, lining each with ¼-inch steel (with concrete-backing,) testing and repairing leaks, and tunneling them together and to Pearl Harbor, 2 ½-miles away – in secrecy.

In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers placed the facility alongside Hoover Dam, the Eiffel Tower, Panama Canal and Statue of Liberty as a historic landmark.

In 2014, evidence of fuel leakage was noted.  The Navy and City & County, State and Federal agencies have come together to evaluate the impact to the environment and community, and to look at solutions in dealing with the leak and strategies to mitigate the impacts.

While at DLNR, I had the opportunity to visit the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility above Pearl Harbor; it’s a secured facility with no public tours or access.

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RedHillStorageTanks-photo_construction_inside-tank
RedHillStorageTanks-photo_construction_inside-tank
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200 feet down to the bottom of an empty fuel tank-(honoluluadvertiser)
200 feet down to the bottom of an empty fuel tank-(honoluluadvertiser)
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
An intersection, about 450 feet beneath Red Hill-(honoluluadvertiser)
An intersection, about 450 feet beneath Red Hill-(honoluluadvertiser)
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Honu_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)
Honu_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks
Walking_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)
Walking_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)
Honu_in_Tunnel-(honoluluadvertiser)
Honu_in_Tunnel-(honoluluadvertiser)
Layout-map-(honoluluadvertiser)
Layout-map-(honoluluadvertiser)
BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage Tanks
BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage Tanks
BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage_Tanks
BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage_Tanks

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Military, Red Hill

June 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Arthur L Andrews Outdoor Theatre

Cornell-educated core faculty was brought in during the early days of the College of Hawai‘i to help build a foundation for the University of Hawai‘i’s future.

One such was Arthur Lynn Andrews; He was born in 1871 in McLean, New York and received a MA and his doctorate from Cornell University.

When he arrived in the islands in 1910, he first joined the College of Agriculture and Mechanic as an English professor. College classes were held in a remodeled residence in the backyard of a high school at Beretania and Victoria; the entire student enrollment was 17.

Andrews was active in all aspects of university life. He did not play football but is said to have introduced the famous Statue of Liberty feint play to island teams.

In 1913, he produced the University’s first play, “The Revolving Wedge,” and engaged students in playwriting. He organized the first campus newspaper and the first annual, sang in the glee club and played third base on the baseball team. (UH)

Andrews became the first Dean of the College of Arts and Science, when the College of Hawai‘i was transformed into the University in 1920.

Debate was once a major part of the university. Andrews founded the debate and forensics program in 1924, modeling it after the world famous Oxford Union.

He then became Dean of Faculties from 1930 until 1936, when he retired. From 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the board of Regents. (NPS)

Construction of the Manoa Campus almost stopped during the great depression in the 1930s. Exceptions were projects for which the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA – under the ‘New Deal’) provided the manpower.

One such project at the University was an Outdoor Theater. The University provided $5,213 (cost of materials) and $50,000 was provided by the FERA.

The Outdoor Theatre was designed by Ralph Fishbourne and Professor Arthur R. Keller served as the consulting engineer. The landscape designer was a noted UH graduate and landscape architect in Hawaiʻi, Richard Tongg.

The structure was designed with a 5,500 person seating capacity with some of the stone material for the seating coming from Fort Ruger.

The approximate size of the space is 200 feet wide by 300 feet long. The curve of the Outdoor Theatre portion has a sweeping 60-foot radius. The Outdoor Theatre seating is partially sunken into the ground, with the stage area set below grade. The 25 foot by 35 foot concrete surface at the center of the raised stage gives way to lawn, used as an extension of the formal stage.

It opened on June 20, 1935. Originally the structure was called Andrews Amphitheatre (named after Andrews,) but President Gregg Sinclair renamed it “Arthur L. Andrews Outdoor Theatre” in an attempt to use the proper descriptive vocabulary, since ‘Amphitheatre’ refers to a structure that wraps all of the way around the stage.

The graduating class of 1935 was the first to hold commencement ceremonies in the Outdoor Theatre. The theatre was dedicated at the Annual Commencement on June 12, 1945, to Dr Andrews who had died a month earlier.

In the 1970s there was discussion of adding a retractable roof in order to guarantee dry events, but these ideas were terminated in favor of keeping the garden design preserved and open to daylighting. Andrews served as a venue for graduation ceremonies, speeches, and concerts.

The University has two programs dedicated to Andrews: Arthur Lynn Andrews Distinguished Visiting Professor of Asian Studies to promote Asian and Pacific studies at UH through the selection of outstanding visiting professors each year and Arthur Lynn Andrews Award for Fiction awarded to the top entry from undergraduate and graduate students – entries not to exceed 10,000 words. (UH)

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Andrews-Amphitheater-1935
Andrews-Amphitheater-1935
Arthur Lynn Andrews
Arthur Lynn Andrews
Andrews-Amphitheater-1940
Andrews-Amphitheater-1940
Andrews-Amphitheater 1940
Andrews-Amphitheater 1940
Arthur Lynn Andrews-gravestone-Oahu Cemetery
Arthur Lynn Andrews-gravestone-Oahu Cemetery
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Andrews Outdoor Theatre
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Andrews-UH-1950s graduation-EBay
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Andrews Amphitheater
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Andrews-Amphitheater
UH Manoa - Before Andrews Amphitheater-1932
UH Manoa – Before Andrews Amphitheater-1932
UH Manoa - Andrews Amphitheater noted-1937
UH Manoa – Andrews Amphitheater noted-1937
UH Manoa - Andrews Amphitheater noted-1936
UH Manoa – Andrews Amphitheater noted-1936

Filed Under: Buildings, Schools, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, University of Hawaii, Arthur L Andrews Outdoor Theatre, Andrews Amphitheatre

June 9, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Dillingham Transportation Building

In 1889, after devoting twenty years to the hardware business, Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham created the O‘ahu Railroad and Land Company (OR&L.) This company was primarily responsible for the development of the 160-mile O‘ahu Railroad.

Through these rail interests, the corporation became involved with the development of the various sugarcane plantations along its route, and later expanded its cane activities to the islands of Kauai, Maui and Hawai‘i with the McBryde, Kihei, Puna and Ola‘a Sugar Companies. (NPS)

Ultimately OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples for Dole.

By the early-1900s, the expanded railway cut across the island, serving several sugar and pineapple plantations, and the popular Haleʻiwa Hotel. They even included a “Kodak Camera Train” (associated with the Hula Show) for Sunday trips to Hale‘iwa for picture-taking.

When the hotel opened on August 5, 1899, guests were conveyed from the railway terminal over the Anahulu stream to fourteen luxurious suites, each had a bath with hot-and-cold running water. Dillingham died April 7, 1918 (aged 73.)

Built in 1929, in memory of Dillingham by his son Walter Francis Dillingham, the 4-story Dillingham Transportation Building carries the ‘transportation building’ because at that time the Dillingham family was concerned with various types of transportation to and around Hawaii.

Walter founded the Hawaiian Dredging Company (later Dillingham Construction) and ran the O‘ahu Railway and Land Company founded by his father.

The building was designed in an Italian Renaissance Revival by architect Lincoln Rogers of Los Angeles, who also designed the Hawaii State Art Museum (1928.)

“Lincoln Rogers, architect of the building, in choosing a style of architecture generally called ‘Mediterranean’ with Italian Renaissance as the guiding principle, found a motif ideally suited to a semi-tropic city surrounded by sparkling seas and green-clad mountains.” (Honolulu)

The Dillingham Transportation Building is Italian Renaissance concrete and concrete block structure with three connected wings, and is a good example of the Mediterranean revival style applied to a commercial structure.

The first story round arched arcade, upper story quoins and the low pitched, tile, hipped roof, well convey the style. The Mediterranean and Spanish mission revival styles enjoyed tremendous popularity in Hawaii during the twenties.

These styles, the closest European equivalents to tropical design, were considered to be the most appropriate forms for Hawaii’s climate with their arcades providing a sense of airy openness.

The Dillingham Transportation Building is one of a number of downtown buildings to employ these styles, and is the most imposing of the Mediterranean revival buildings in the area. (NPS)

The structure has a Spanish tile hip roof, and below the eave there is a frescoed decoration. The entrance lobby features Art Deco patterns of variously colored marbles and bricks. (Historic Hawai‘i)

You will note nautical references above the door arches and along the outside walls of the building – noting ships, sailors and twisted rope patterns (even over the elevators.)

The Dillingham Transportation Building shares arcade space with the nearby Pacific Guardian Building, whose street address is ‘through’ the Dillingham lobby. (Star-Bulletin)

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Dillingham Transportation Building-PP-8-4-003-00001
Dillingham Transportation Building-PP-8-4-003-00001
Dillingham Memorial Dedication Plaque-400
Dillingham Memorial Dedication Plaque-400
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Dillingham Transportation Building
Benjamin_Franklin_Dillingham_(1844–1918)
Benjamin_Franklin_Dillingham_(1844–1918)
Walter_Francis_Dillingham-(WC)
Walter_Francis_Dillingham-(WC)

Filed Under: General, Buildings, Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: Walter Francis Dillingham, Dillingham Transportation Building, OR&L, Oahu, Downtown Honolulu, Oahu Railway and Land Company, Dillingham, Benjamin Franklin Dillingham

May 27, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Unknown Negro Mess Man’

Following the attack, the reports from all of Pearl Harbor’s ships and shore facilities of the events of December 7, 1941 were assembled and analyzed; then, the process of confirmation and then giving commendations to all personnel cited in the hundreds of reports began.

The Navy Board of Awards was established on February 12, 1942. A Navy spokesman recommended that the ‘unknown Negro mess man’ be considered for an award (the sole commendation to an African American.)

The unknown Negro mess man was named to the 1941 Honor Roll of Race Relations. On March 12, 1942, Dr Lawrence D Reddick announced, after corresponding with the Navy, that he found the name was ‘Doris Miller.’ (Aiken)

Let’s look back …

Doris Miller was born on October 12, 1919, the third of four sons to Connery and Henrietta Miller in Waco, Texas. He was named for the midwife present at his birth.

The family lived in a three room farmhouse near Speegleville, Texas where his father was a farmer. His life had begun in a time of controversy, turmoil and violence, although his immediate surroundings appeared to be peaceful and simple. Everyone in America struggled through the Great Depression. (Baltimore AfroAmerican)

Along with his siblings, Doris worked to support the family farm from an early age. In his youth, he became an excellent marksman as he hunted for small game with his brothers.

Doris also had a successful school career at AJ Moore High School. His tall stature gained the attention of the football coach at the school who recruited Doris as a fullback on the team.

However, as Doris became older, and as war loomed on the horizon, he longed to join the armed forces much to the chagrin of his parents. After several attempts to join different sectors of the military, Doris enlisted in the US Navy in Dallas, Texas, on September 16, 1939.

Unfortunately, at the time of his enlistment, discrimination limited the areas of service for African Americans in the military. After training, his assignment was as a mess attendant, third class. (Danner; Waco History)

“You have to understand that when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president in 1932, he opened up the Navy again to blacks, but in one area only; they were called mess attendants, stewards, and cooks,” says Clark Simmons, who was a mess attendant on the USS Utah during the Pearl Harbor attack.

“The Navy was so structured that if you were black, this was what they had you do in the Navy – you only could be a servant.” (National Geographic)

After training in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving a stint on the ammunition ship Pyro, Miller was assigned to the battleship West Virginia in 1940. He soon won renown as the best heavyweight boxer onboard.

With the exception of a training stay at Secondary Battery Gunnery School, Miller would remain on the West Virginia until December 7, 1941, when the ship was in port at Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i.

The morning of the Japanese attack, Miller was doing laundry rounds when the call to battle stations went out. He rushed to his station, an antiaircraft-battery magazine. Seeing the magazine damaged by torpedo fire, he went above decks to help the wounded to safety.

Word came that “the captain and the executive officer, the ‘XO,’ were on the bridge and they both were injured,” says Simmons. “So Dorie Miller went up and physically picked up the captain and brought him down to the first aid station. And then he went back and manned a .50-caliber machine gun, which he had not been trained on.” (National Geographic)

He committed his efforts to the defense of the West Virginia until superiors ordered all to abandon ship.

“It wasn’t hard,” said Miller shortly after the battle. “I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about 15 minutes. I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.” (National Geographic)

Here’s a clip of Cuba Gooding, Jr portraying Miller in ‘Pearl Harbor.’

Of the 1,541 men on West Virginia during the attack, 130 were killed and 52 wounded. Then, word circulated about the ‘unknown Negro mess man’ and his actions that day.

On March 14, 1942, The Pittsburgh Courier released a story that named the black mess man as ‘Dorie’ Miller. This is the earliest found use of ‘Dorie,’ an apparent typographical error. (Some sources have further misspelled the name to ‘Dore’ and ‘Dorrie.’

Various writers have attributed ‘Dorie’ to other suggestions such as a “nickname to shipmates and friends”… or “the Navy thought he should go by the more masculine-sounding Dorie.” (Aiken)

On May 27, 1942 in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Chester W Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, personally recognized Miller aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise.

Miller became the first African American recipient of the Navy Cross, the highest decoration the navy can offer besides the Congressional Medal of Honor. (Danner; Waco History)

The Navy’s commendation noted, “For distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawai‘i, by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941.”

“While at the side of his Captain on the bridge, Miller, despite enemy strafing and bombing and in the face of a serious fire, assisted in moving his Captain, who had been mortally wounded, to a place of greater safety, and later manned and operated a machine gun directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft until ordered to leave the bridge.” (Navy)

The Pittsburgh Courier called for Miller to be allowed to return home for a war bond tour like white heroes. In November 1942, Miller arrived at Maui, and was ordered on a war bond tour while still attached to the heavy cruiser Indianapolis.

In December 1942 and January 1943, he gave talks in Oakland, California, in his hometown of Waco, Texas, in Dallas and to the first graduating class of African-American sailors from Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Chicago.

Miller then reported to duty aboard the aircraft carrier Liscome Bay as Petty Officer, Ship’s Cook Third Class. After training in Hawai‘i for the Gilbert Islands operation, Liscome Bay participated in the Battle of Tarawa which began on November 20, 1943. (Philadelphia Tribune)

During the battle of the Gilbert Islands, on November 24, 1943, a single torpedo from a Japanese submarine struck the escort carrier near the stern. (Texas State Historical Assn)

The aircraft bomb magazine detonated a few moments later, sinking the warship within minutes. There were 272 survivors. The rest of the crew was listed as “presumed dead.”

On December 7, 1943 — exactly two years after Pearl Harbor —Miller’s parents were notified their son “was dead.” (Philadelphia Tribune)

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 (a Knox-class frigate) is the third naval ship to be named after a black navy man.

In Waco, a YMCA branch, a park and a cemetery bear his name. In Houston, Texas, and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, elementary schools have been named for him, as has a Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter in Los Angeles.

An auditorium on the campus of Huston-Tillotson College in Austin is dedicated to his memory. In Chicago, the Doris Miller Foundation honors persons who make significant contributions to racial understanding. (Doris Miller Memorial) In Honolulu, there is a Doris Miller Loop, just mauka of the airport. (There are many more memorials to Doris Miller.)

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Admiral Chester Nimitz presenting the Navy Cross to Doris Miller
Admiral Chester Nimitz presenting the Navy Cross to Doris Miller
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Doris_Miller
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Miller speaking during a visit to the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois, on 7 January 1943-80-G-294808
Miller speaking during a visit to the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois, on 7 January 1943-80-G-294808
Miller speaking with sailors and a civilian at Naval Station Great Lakes, January 7, 1943
Miller speaking with sailors and a civilian at Naval Station Great Lakes, January 7, 1943
Dorie Miller-cartoon
Dorie Miller-cartoon
Above_and_beyond_poster-1943 U.S. Navy recruiting poster featuring Doris Miller
Above_and_beyond_poster-1943 U.S. Navy recruiting poster featuring Doris Miller
Dorie Miller Pin
Dorie Miller Pin

Filed Under: Military, Prominent People Tagged With: Doris Miller, African American, Hawaii, Oahu, Pearl Harbor

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

Info@Hookuleana.com

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