Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -

Sale 2708 - Lot 212

Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
(WORLD WAR TWO.) "Above and Beyond the Call of Duty": Dorie Miller Received the Navy Cross at Pearl Harbor. Poster, 28 x 20 inches; folds, minimal wear, 1-inch repaired tear, backed with linen. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943
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Additional Details

In the segregated navy of the 1940s, Blacks were almost entirely restricted to service as mess attendants. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, one of the messmen on the USS West Virginia was Doris "Dorie" Miller. While the ship was under fire from the surprise attack, Miller carried a wounded officer from the deck, and then without any training took a position behind one of the ship's anti-aircraft guns. As he described it later, "It wasn't hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about fifteen minutes. I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us."

Once his identity became known, Miller received a Distinguished Service Cross, but after lobbying by the nation's Black press, he was awarded the yet more prestigious Navy Cross in May 1942. He died in the line of duty in November 1943.

In 2020, the Navy announced plans to name a new aircraft carrier after Miller. Some of the pages on the Navy website relating to Miller were taken down in 2025 (Curtis Bunn, NBC News website, 22 March 2025).

The artist for this poster was David Stone Martin, who was otherwise best known for the art on hundreds of jazz record covers in the 1940s and 1950s. Only 2 other examples are traced in OCLC.

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