Navy names aircraft carrier for Pearl Harbor hero

The U.S. Navy named an aircraft carrier in honor of Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller yesterday during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony, the first aircraft carried named for an African-American. Navy Acting Secretary Thomas Modly said in the ceremony at Pearl Harbor that the USS Doris Miller will serve as a reminder of the nation's ongoing pursuit for justice and as a tribute to its namesake. Miller, the first African American to receive the Navy Cross for his courage during the 1941 attack, was a ship's cook who helped evacuate the battleship West Virginia before it sank and fired a machine gun at the incoming Japanese planes until he ran out of ammunition. He was killed two years later on the USS Liscome Bay, when the ship was hit by a torpedo and sank. Another Navy ship, a frigate called the USS Miller, is also named after him.