By Hugh Lessig, ADVANCE MILITARY CORRESPONDENT
A backlash from veterans and other groups is growing in the wake of reports that the future U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to be named for WWII Doris “Dorie” Miller will be renamed instead for President Trump.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine says he’s a hard no on the change.
But first, a word about Miller.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Mess Attendance Third Class Doris Miller was on the USS West Virginia when the bombs fell at Pearl Harbor. After carrying his mortally wounded commanding officer to safety, Miller manned a machine gun despite having no training. At that time, Black service members were relegated to general service and mess roles. Miller fired on Japanese planes and rescued other crew members.
His heroism wasn’t discovered until months later when a newspaper story revealed his identity. Miller received the Navy Cross and was briefly recalled to the U.S. for a war bonds tour before returning to fighting in the Pacific.
In November 1943, his aircraft carrier was hit by a torpedo and most of the crew was killed. Miller’s body was never recovered.
The ship that would bear his name, now under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding, would be the first aircraft carrier to be named for an African American.
Kaine, while in Fredericksburg recently for a veterans roundtable, was asked what he thought about stripping away Miller’s name in favor of Trump, and he didn’t mince words.
“I’m very much against it,” he said. “The ship should be The Doris Miller. Talk about a heroic individual. If somebody wants to name a ship after President Trump, we’re going to build some more ships in the future. Don’t take the name of this historic Pearl Harbor hero off of this ship to put Trump’s name on it.”
To try to preserve Miller’s name on the new carrier, Kaine inserted a provision into the Senate version of the defense spending blueprint known as the National Defense Authorization Act that would make it more difficult for the Secretary of the Navy to rename a ship when the name has already been announced.
The legislation is with the Senate Armed Services Committee, which hasn’t yet approved the measure. In short, it has a long way to go.
“I’ve got to get this through the entire Congress,” Kaine said.
Another aspect of the Navy’s aircraft carrier program is getting Kaine’s attention as well, also courtesy of President Trump.
The president has long been against the electromagnetic catapults that launch planes from the Navy’s new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. The first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford has them, as does the future USS John F. Kennedy. The third Ford-class ship is the Enterprise, still under construction, and it’s already committed to using the new catapults.
But Trump wants the next ship—you guessed it, the Doris Miller—to revert to the old steam catapults, and that would be the practice going forward. Trump said the steam catapults are simpler to operate and more reliable.
In a 2018 Thanksgiving Day call to the USS Ronald Reagan, Trump quizzed the ship’s commander, Capt. Pat Hannifin, on the steam vs. electromagnetic question. The Reagan is an older carrier and uses the steam catapults, but the commander endorsed the newer electromagnetic ones.
Speaking of the new catapults, Trump complained that “you have to be Albert Einstein to figure them out.”
“Yes sir, you have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plants we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well,” Hannifin said, according to USNI News.
Trump signed a presidential order on Aug. 13 that requiring a plan to revert to the steam-powered catapults.
Kaine’s opposition is adamant.
“We’re not going to let this happen,” he said.
He and fellow Virginia Sen. Mark R. Warner recently visited with officers and crew on the Ford carrier after a 327-day deployment that covered Venezuela and the Middle East.
The sailors on the flight line “couldn’t have been more complimentary” on how the new catapults performed, Kaine said.
“That launch system is light years ahead of steam propulsion,” he said, “so why would we want to spend billions to an older technology? This thing has come through an absolute battle test with flying colors.”
