Doris "Dorie" Miller - Hero

Doris "Dorie" Miller.   His friends called him Dorie.   Born in Waco, Texas in 1919 he worked on his fathers farm and joined the Navy in 1939.   He wanted to travel and earn some money for his parents, Henrietta and Conery Miller.   But how did he get the first name of Doris?   I don't know.   Could it be that his father gave him that first name so he would group up tough to take on life's challenges?   We all remember that Johnny Cash song about A Boy Named Sue.

There were probably a lot of truisms in the lyrics of that song.   And Dorie did grow up tough and strong.  He was a fullback on the football team while attending Moore High School in Waco, Texas.
When he joined the Navy in 1939 he was a mess attendant and assigned to the ammunition ship USS Pyro.  

Now it is bad enough being assigned to an ammunition ship, but the ships name Pyro is the Greek word for fire.   And the last thing that you want on a ship loaded full of ammunition is fire.   I would have found it very unnerving.   Interestingly, the ship made it through the war without incident.

On January 2, 1940 he was transferred to the Battleship USS West Virginia.

He was the heavyweight boxing champion on board the USS West Virginia.   Being the champion meant that he was the toughest sailor on board.   Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrayed Dorie Miller in the movie Pearl Harbor as the heavyweight boxing champ on board the ship.

  

Just like Steven Segal in the movie Under Siege, he was one tough mess attendant.  

Steven Segal was a cook aboard the USS Missouri in that movie.   

But a tough cook, much like Dorie Miller.

One big difference, Steven Segal was an actor in a movie but Dorie Miller was a real life hero.  

In the picture at the very beginning of this blog, that medal on the chest of Dorie Miller is the Navy Cross, a very high honor awarded for heroism in battle.  

And it was presented to Dorie by none other than Admiral Nimitz himself in a ceremony held on board the USS Enterprise. 

And Admiral Nimitz himself personally pinned the Navy Cross onto Dorie Miller's uniform.   Another high honor.

There is only one medal higher than the Navy Cross and that is the Congressional Medal of Honor.   But why would the Navy Cross be presented to Dorie Miller for heroism?   What did he do?   Here is the answer.   He was a mess attendant on board the battleship USS West Virginia and it was at anchor in Pearl Harbor (yeah, you know what's coming).  

It was December 7, 1941.   Not the place to be.   Dorie arose at 6:00 am and began gathering the laundry.   The alarm for General Quarters sounded.   Dorie Miller responded to his battle station which was the anti-aircraft ammunition storage room.   The room had been destroyed by a torpedo and so Dorie proceeded to the deck.   There were wounded sailors and he started carrying them to safety.   He was then ordered by an officer to go to the bridge and aid the mortally wounded Captain Bennion, Captain of the ship.  

        Captain Bennion

Once Captain Bennion was in a safe area and being tended to, Dorie returned to the deck and manned a 50 caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun.   Portrayed here by Cuba Gooding, Jr. in a scene from the movie Pearl Harbor.

Dorie did shoot down a Japanese plane.  Again Dorie Miller is portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the movie Pearl Harbor.

Dorie fired the machine guns for about 15 minutes until he ran out of ammunition.

After having two armor piercing bombs penetrate through the deck and after being hit by five 18-inch aircraft torpedos, the USS West Virginia was sinking and the crew was ordered to abandon ship.   Once again, Cuba Gooding, Jr. portraying Dorie Miller.

The USS West Virginia sunk until her deck was even with the water.   The great battleship had settled onto the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

His ship was sunk and so the USS West Virginia did not need a mess attendant and Dorie was a hero for his courage under fire.   His image was put on recruiting posters.

He gave speeches like the one here at the Naval Training Station in Great Lakes, Illinois.

 

Dorie Miller was transferred to the cruiser USS Indianapolis on December 13, 1941.  

We all remember the USS Indianapolis was the ship that carried the uranium core to Tinian island for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.   And then on the return trip the USS Indianapolis was sunk on July 30, 1945 by a Japanese submarine with a terrible loss of life.
But Dorie had already been transferred during the spring of 1943 to the aircraft carrier USS Liscome Bay.

On November 24, 1943 at 5:10 am the USS Liscome Bay was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-175.   Minutes later the room where the bombs for the planes were stored exploded.   Minutes later the aircraft carrier sank.   Of the 916 crewmen on board the carrier, 644 died, including Dorrie Miller.   Only 272 men survived.
To honor Doris Dorrie Miller a frigate was commissioned as the USS Miller.  

The post office issued a postage stamp on February 4, 2010 honoring Doris Miller.

But a very nice honor was afforded by a reenactor who portrayed Doris Dorrie Miller.   A really nice gesture.   This was at the National Archives 2007 Fourth of July celebration.   The woman was portraying Rosie the Riveter.  

It is good to remember those who have given so much and not let their memory fade away.   There is much more about Dorrie Miller and so please do an internet search on Doris Miller and read the whole story in detail about Dorrie.    Have a good day.    Lew

Godzilla flower

With the coming of the rainy season in Florida the passion vines that I planted are really starting to grow rapidly.   That is them growing right up the center of the trellis.

Hopefully they will bloom with some beautiful flowers.   I don't know how they can consider this plant as a roadside weed.

The passion vine that I have was started as a cutting from a larger vine.   I used a rooting hormone to help it develop roots.

It worked great.   The cutting sprouted both roots and leaves.

It has that characteristic three bladed leaf.   And I can't tell you why but it reminds me of the Godzilla footprint from the remake of the movie starring Matthew Broderick.

 

Evidently the scene for the movie was filmed on the Kualoa ranch in Hawaii.

And the footprint for the movie is still there and has now become a tourist attraction.

 

Seeing the Godzilla footprint in person would make a good excuse for visiting Hawaii.   I have never been to Hawaii but living here in Florida is pretty similar.    Plus we have DisneyWorld here in Orlando, Florida.   Is there a Disney World in Hawaii?   I don't think so.

By the way, the small white flowers in the background are from the jasmine vine which is also growing up the trellis. Check back from time to time to see the beautiful flowers when they bloom.
By the way, how did I do on tying the passion flower to Godzilla?

 

Have a terrific day.     Lew

the onion

We had an onion start to sprout in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator.   We decided to plant it to see if it would grow.   How do you like the idea of using an empty 2-liter soda pop bottle for a planter?   Just cut a large hole in the side and then mount it to whatever you want with a couple of screws.   And don't forget to put some holes in the downside of the  soda pop planter to allow for drainage.   Much to our surprise the onion started to grow so I got a picture of it.   Now it was just a matter of waiting to see what would happen.   And it started growing straight up (geotropism?).   Over a period of about a week it had an amazing growth.

Most of the leaves became bent over but two stalks were doing just fine.   Just look at the funny shape on the top of the stalk.

The shapes reminds me of the colorful "onion domes" of St. Basils cathedral in Moscow's Red Square.   Such a beautiful splash of color.   And I can see why they are referred to as "onion domes".

But it seemed that all this rapid growth was taking it's energy from the onion itself as it began to shrivel up.

The odd shape thing on the tip of the stem began to form a more bulbous shape.   And through the skin there appeared to be little bumps.   This was becoming quite an adventure because I was baffled.   It was so strange looking.   What were those bumps?

After a couple days the membrane split open to reveal some funny looking things.

After a few more days those funny little things proved to be flower buds.   You can see one of the flowers breaking out of it's petal enclosure.  

I did a search on the internet about onions and found this picture of what mine should look like after it has fully blossomed.   I have spent my entire life eating onions but this was the first time that I had ever seen an onion flower.   I am still fascinated by it.

Those little black things on the onion flower are onion seeds.  

I hope that I get a handful like this individual did.

Stay tuned and I will let you know what happens with the seeds.   It seems that life is a learning process and I seem to keep learning new things.   Life is just amazing, and precious also.   Have a great day wherever you may be and please share with me in the comments section of any of your personal experiences.   Lew

Virginia Dare

I was at a stamp show for collectors and one of the dealers had this stamp for sale.   I bought it but had no idea who Virginia Dare was.  The stamp was issued in 1937 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the birth of Virginia Dare and the settlement of Roanoke Island.  The stamp design was based on a vignette painting by William A. Roache.   The painting is much more clear and with details more readily seen than the stamp.   The stamp has a pale blue color.

This is the actual stamp that I bought which has some yellowing to it which may be from age.   After all it is 67 years old.   It could also be due to the gummed adhesive on the back of the stamp bleeding through the paper.

The stamp that I purchased is unused.   This stamp did not come off of an envelope because there is no cancellation marks on it.   I prefer stamps that are unused because I think that the cancellation marks take away from the artistry of the stamps.

The Virginia Dare stamp is rather old.   This means that for an unused stamp someone had to buy this stamp in 1937 and hold onto it for 76 years.   That is a long time to store a stamp.   How much did I pay for this 76 year old unused stamp?   15 cents.   I would have thought that it would have been worth much more than that because of its age.   Nope, it was only 15 cents.   But back to the stamp, who was Virginia Dare and why is there a commemorative stamp honoring her?  After researching the stamp I found that Virginia Dare is the baby who is being held by her mother Eleanor White Dare.   The middle name of the mother, “White”, is her maiden name.   Keep that tucked away in the back of your mind.   That name White will pop up again in this blog.   The man is her father, Ananias Dare.  He is holding a musket rifle.    As it says on the stamp above, Virginia Dare was born in 1587 on Roanoke Island in the Virginia Colony in America.   Specifically, she was born on August 18, 1857.    She was named Virginia because she was born in the Virginia colony.   The Virginia colony got its name from Sir Walter Raleigh who named the colony after Queen Elizabeth I of England who was known as the “virgin queen”.    What makes Virginia Dare notable is that she was the first English child born in America and was baptized as depicted here in this painting.   What a momentous event that must have been.

Virginia Dare's parents were among 117 settlers that sailed from England to America to establish a colony.   Sir Walter Raleigh was attempting to establish a colony in the New World of the Americas.

Sir Walter Raleigh.

I remember Sir Walter Raleigh from a very early age.   Actually I remember his image on the packs of Raleigh cigarettes.

  

The Raleigh cigarettes had a coupon on the back of the pack enclosed under the clear cellophane wrapping.

These coupons could be saved and redeemed for prizes.
And there were also the cans of Raleigh pipe tobacco.

There were evidently also cards but I never saw any of them.    I must admit that the card is very colorful picturesque (did I spell that right?).

But enough on tobacco.  Leaving England on May 8, 1587 they sailed on a Caravel ship called The Lion.

The ship was captained by Simon Fernandez, a Portuguese pilot who was familiar with the area.   They sailed from England on May 8, 1587 and arrived at Roanoke in July, 1587.   A two month passage at sea.  

A little digression for a moment.

Aren't we lucky to be able to sail the oceans on luxurious cruise ships instead of the small sailing ships of old.   If you have never been on a cruise on one of these massive ships, then be sure to add it to your "bucket list".   What is a "bucket list"?    A list of things that you want to do before you "kick the bucket".    And no, a long bucket list won't make you live longer, just have more fun with your allotted time.

But these colonists weren’t so lucky as our modern day travelers.   Fortunately they didn’t squeeze all 117 people onto one boat but rather had a fleet of ships.   How many, I don’t know but they had to carry enough food to feed all of these people plus the sailors for two months.   I wonder how much food they had left when they reached Roanoke.   They couldn’t unload all of the remaining food supplies from the boats because some of the food had to be saved for the sailors for the two month return trip to England.
Nine days after the birth of Virginia Dare her grandfather, Governor John White, left the colony and sailed back to England to obtain more supplies for the colony.   Remember earlier I mentioned to remember Eleanor White Dare maiden name of White?  Yep, Governor John White was her daddy.   The colonists had arrived in America in August and it was too late to plant any crops.   And without the supplies that Governor White would bring back it would be a very cold and hungry winter.   Governor White made it back to England but now there was a war between England and Spain, and England needed all ships to fight the Spanish Armada.   It was three years before Governor White made it back to the Virginia colony on Roanoke and arrived on August  1590.   The settlement was abandoned and the colonists had carved the name Croatoan into a large tree indicating that they had gone to a nearby island where a tribe of indians, the Croatoan, lived.

The infant Virginia Dare had disappeared along with the other colonists.  It is believed that they may have been attacked by hostile indians and what survivors there may have been were absorbed into the Croatoan tribe.   The fate of the colonists of The Lost Colony has remained a mystery to this day.
       All this and more, I learned because of my curiosity about a pale blue stamp.   The commemorative stamps all have fascinating stories connected with them.   And there is a wealth of information on the internet about each stamp.  Pick an old commemorative stamp and research it and read its history on the internet.   I am sure that it will get you interested in the commemorative stamps and the stories that they tell.    Lew

Tammy's boyfriend

Our cat Tammy seems to have a boyfriend.   A stray tomcat that hangs around the house for food.   His name is Oscar.

Not to worry though, Tammy has been spayed.   I opened the garage door this morning and saw them both by the base of the oak tree.   I thought that it would make a nice picture so I ran inside to get my camera.  

By the time that I got back outside (which was less than a minute, Oscar had turned around and now his backside was facing the camera.

Isn't that always the way with pets?   I can't get the camera in time to get that perfect picture.   Did you notice in the picture above that Tammy is laying in the shade of the tree?  She likes to be in the shade and avoid the sun.

And on a warm day in the shade of the camphor tree in the backyard she really relaxes.

Have a nice day and enjoy some time with your pets whatever they may be.   Unless it is a gator climbing a fence.

An amazing picture.   Take care.    Lew