The US Navy Is Discussing Renaming the Carrier Promised to Pearl Harbor Hero Doris Miller, and One Option Is USS Donald Trump

Verified key facts

• The US Navy is discussing changing the name of aircraft carrier CVN-81, which was to be named USS Doris Miller, and one option under discussion is naming it after Donald Trump, according to NBC News, citing three people familiar with the talks.
• The Navy has stopped using 'USS Doris Miller' in some internal references and instead refers to the ship by its hull number, per NBC News.
• The carrier's keel-laying ceremony is expected towards the end of 2026, giving the Navy a limited window to settle the official name, according to NBC News.
• CVN-81 would have been the first US aircraft carrier named for an enlisted sailor and for an African American, a decision announced in 2020.
• The Navy is reportedly weighing naming a different warship after Miller while recommending him for the Medal of Honor, per NBC News.

A carrier name that carried a promise

In January 2020 the US Navy announced that its next Ford-class aircraft carrier, hull number CVN-81, would be named USS Doris Miller. The choice broke two barriers at once: no American carrier had ever been named for an enlisted sailor, and none had been named for an African American. Six years on, that promise is in question. According to NBC News, citing three people familiar with internal discussions, the Navy is considering renaming the ship, and one option on the table is to name it after President Donald Trump.

The report says the Navy has already stopped using the name USS Doris Miller in some internal references, falling back on the neutral hull number CVN-81, a shift that people inside the service read as a sign the question is genuinely open.

Who Doris Miller was

Doris Miller was a mess attendant aboard the battleship USS West Virginia on 7 December 1941, one of the limited roles the segregated Navy of the era permitted Black sailors. When the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began, Miller carried wounded shipmates to safety, including the ship's mortally wounded captain, then manned an anti-aircraft machine gun he had never been trained to fire and kept firing until he ran out of ammunition and was ordered to abandon ship.

For his actions he became the first Black sailor to be awarded the Navy Cross, presented personally by Admiral Chester Nimitz. Miller died two years later, in November 1943, when the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay was torpedoed in the Pacific. He was 24 years old.

His story has never faded from American memory. Born near Waco, Texas, in 1919, Miller is commemorated in his home city with a memorial and a veterans' cemetery bearing his name. The Navy named a Knox-class frigate for him in 1973, and Cuba Gooding Jr portrayed him in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, carrying the story to a new generation. When the carrier naming was announced at Pearl Harbor on Martin Luther King Jr Day in 2020, Navy leadership framed it as a long-overdue correction: the service honouring a man who fought heroically for a Navy that would not let him train as a gunner.

What NBC News says is being discussed

The internal discussions described to NBC News are not limited to a single option. Alongside the possibility of naming CVN-81 after the sitting president, officials have reportedly discussed a compromise: naming a different, smaller warship after Miller, and simultaneously recommending him for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration, an honour many veterans' groups have argued he was denied in 1942 because of his race.

None of the people cited suggested a final decision had been made. But the clock is running. The keel-laying ceremony for CVN-81, the symbolic moment when a carrier's identity is traditionally fixed to the hull, is expected towards the end of 2026, according to NBC News. The ship itself is not expected to join the fleet before 2034 owing to shipbuilder capacity constraints.

Why carrier names matter

American aircraft carriers are the largest warships ever built, and their names are chosen as statements. Recent carriers have honoured presidents, Gerald R. Ford, John F. Kennedy, and the class stretching back through Nimitz honoured admirals and statesmen. Naming CVN-81 for Miller was explicitly framed in 2020 as a recognition that the Navy's history was built by its enlisted ranks as well as its officers, and by Black sailors who served a country that segregated them.

Reversing that decision would be highly unusual. Warship renamings do happen, the Navy renamed two ships in 2023 that had carried Confederate associations, but stripping a name honouring a decorated Black enlisted hero would be without modern precedent, and the political symbolism of replacing it with a sitting president's name would be impossible to miss.

There is also the matter of permanence. Ford-class carriers cost on the order of $13 billion each and serve for half a century, which means a name fixed at the keel-laying will still be sailing in the 2080s, projected into every port call, deployment and news report for decades. Both sides of this argument understand exactly what is at stake in that longevity.

The reaction so far

Reporting of the discussions has already drawn sharp responses. The Daily Beast characterised the move as an attempt to take one of the Navy's highest honours from a Black sailor, while local outlets in Texas, where Miller was born near Waco, have covered the story with alarm, per KWTX. Veterans' organisations that campaigned for years to see Miller honoured with a carrier have signalled they will fight any change.

Defence officials have not publicly confirmed the discussions, and the White House has not commented on the possibility of a USS Donald Trump. Naming authority for Navy ships rests with the Secretary of the Navy, which means the decision sits inside the administration itself.

A keel-laying decision due by the end of 2026

The practical deadline is the keel-laying at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, expected in the final months of this year. Ceremonial plates are engraved, invitations issued and the ship's sponsor confirmed around that event, all of which require the Navy to commit to a name.

Until then, CVN-81 sits in an unusual limbo: a warship part-built under one name, referred to internally by a number, and waiting on a decision that has become a test of how this administration weighs a segregation-era hero's legacy against the precedent of naming a carrier for a living, serving president. The answer, one way or the other, should come before the year is out.

Sources

• NBC News - Navy discusses renaming aircraft carrier after Trump instead of heroic Black sailor
• The Daily Beast - Trump Plots to Steal Navy's Ultimate Honor From Black Sailor Doris Miller
• KWTX - Report: Future USS Doris Miller aircraft carrier could be renamed for President Trump