Remembering Pearl Harbor, In Search For Heroes

Yet while cultural portrayals of war may have shifted over time, the sudden attack on Pearl Harbor has remained a seminal event for Americans from all generations, a single episode that changed the underpinnings of US society... The exploits of Ship's Cook Third Class Miller, though downplayed by the Navy, were seized upon by black newspapers and civil rights organizations. "They used the example of Dorie Miller in Pearl Harbor as a way to leverage for greater incusion - not only in the war effort, but in American society more broadly," says Philip Klinkner, a government professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY.