Some grew up hearing the story of an eager Black military that gleefully went of to war to save the world from Hitler. These men and women put the segregation they faced in the United States aside. This story is, of course, nonsense. Black men and women in the military were actively involved in the Double V campaign. The project was to encourage fighting aggression overseas and to fight for freedom at home. The project came as a response to a letter written to the Philadelphia Courier by a 26-year old reader, James G Thompson asking "Should I Sacrifice To Live Half-American?" Civil Rights was at the forefront of those going off to war. They did not lay those concerns aside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_V_campaign

At the beginning of the war, Black sailors could not rise above the rank of messman.

The Philadelphia 15 letter conveyed the anguish of Black seaman who had met this fate — some after leaving college to join up. “Our main reason for writing,” the letter began, “is to let all our colored mothers and fathers know how their sons are treated after taking an oath pledging allegiance and loyalty to their flag and country.’’ The letter spoke of messmen being kicked around and unfairly jailed. The passage that was heard around the world in 1940 — and that is still quoted today — warned Black parents to steer their ambitious sons far clear of the Navy, lest they become “seagoing bellhops, chambermaids and dishwashers.”

The Navy jailed the letter writers and discharged them dishonorably, triggering a tidal wave of protest.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/opinion/sunday/dorie-miller-navy-ship.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

A better known story from World War II is that of Dorie Miller.

Mess Attendant Doris Miller, known as Dorie, was collecting laundry aboard the battleship U.S.S. West Virginia when the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He vaulted to the bridge, where he aided the ship’s mortally wounded captain. He fired on Japanese planes with an antiaircraft gun that, as a servant, he had not been trained to use, and pulled men who would otherwise have died from the burning, oil-coated waters of the harbor. He was one of the last sailors to leave the foundering ship.

The U.S.S. West Virginia after the attack on Pearl Harbor.Credit...Associated Press

 

Legislation that would have granted the Black messman the Medal of Honor died in Congress. Despite a distinguished service record that would have transformed a white serviceman’s career, Dorie Miller was serving as a cook when he died two years later in the Pacific. He had a premonition of death not long before a Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank his ship, the U.S.S. Liscome Bay.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/opinion/sunday/dorie-miller-navy-ship.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Miller never received the Medal of Honor.

A Navy supercarrier in his name is scheduled for delivery in 2032.