Navy Weighs Renaming Carrier Set to Honor Pearl Harbor Sailor Doris Miller; Trump's Name Under Discussion
U.S. PoliticsWell-covered
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The Facts
- CNN reported that the Navy is working to rename the future USS Doris Miller, an aircraft carrier under construction, citing three sources.
- Two of CNN's sources said internal conversations have included naming the carrier after President Donald Trump.
- No US aircraft carrier has previously been named after a sitting president.
- The Navy announced during Trump's first term, in January 2020, that the Ford-class carrier would be named USS Doris Miller.
- Doris Miller was a mess attendant aboard the USS West Virginia who manned an anti-aircraft gun untrained during the Dec. 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
- Miller became the first Black service member to receive the Navy Cross.
- Navy officials have stopped referring to the ship as the Doris Miller internally, using its hull number CVN-81 instead.
- One source said the Navy plans to name another warship after Miller and is recommending him for the Medal of Honor.
- NAACP president Derrick Johnson called the reported move "a slap in the face to every war hero and to every service member who has worn the uniform."
- No final decision has been announced, and the Navy and Defense Department told Snopes they had nothing to announce.
Context
Who was Doris Miller?
Miller was a Black enlisted sailor serving as a mess attendant second class aboard the battleship USS West Virginia when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 Detroit News. He carried wounded sailors to safety and fired an anti-aircraft gun he had no training on, downing at least one Japanese plane USA Today,WBOY.com. He became the first Black recipient of the Navy Cross and was killed in November 1943 when a Japanese torpedo sank the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay WION,WBOY.com.
How confirmed is this, and who would make the decision?
The reporting rests on anonymous sources: CNN first reported it, and NBC News and ABC News also reported the deliberations UPI,Newser,WBOY.com. Snopes said the Navy and Defense Department both responded that they had nothing to announce Snopes. Under US law and Navy regulations, the secretary of the Navy is responsible for naming ships GEO TV.
What stage is the ship at?
The vessel, designated CVN-81, would be the fourth Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered carrier and is expected to be commissioned in the mid-2030s RT,National Interest. Miller's family attended a first cut of steel ceremony for the ship in August 2021 UPI, and family members have said they were not informed of the reported reversal Atlanta Black Star.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Miller's conduct at Pearl Harbor earned the honor, and neither framing is comfortable with a sitting president's name going on a carrier for the first time.
- Where Left and Right split
- Whether the story is about an earned honor being taken back from the first Black Navy Cross recipient, or about whether any politician's name belongs on a warship.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is over what a name is: one side treats the 2020 designation as a settled moral debt that facts about authority cannot unmake, the other treats naming as a revocable administrative prerogative, so agreeing on the record changes nothing.
How left and right read it
Earned honors are not revocable. The Navy named this carrier for Doris Miller in 2020 because an untrained mess attendant manned a gun at Pearl Harbor and became the first Black service member to receive the Navy Cross — yet officials now say CVN-81 while weighing a sitting president's name, which no carrier has ever borne. Promising him another ship later does not repair that; keep the name.
“Navy officials are weighing whether to strip the name of one of World War II's most famed Black service members from a new aircraft carrier and instead possibly name the ship for President Donald Trump” — ABC News
A naming decision that sits inside the Navy's authority shouldn't be tried as a moral offense, because the Doris Miller designation came from that same authority, announced during Trump's first term in January 2020, and the reported plan recommends Miller for the Medal of Honor while putting his name on another warship. The argument is general, not personal. What matters is whether any politician's name belongs on a carrier.
“Dead, living, or vegetative, a president or congressman should not have his name -- an inherently partisan handle -- slathered across one of our country's greatest warships.” — National Review
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