USS William C. Miller (DE-259) was an constructed for the United States Navy during World War II. She was sent off into the Pacific Ocean to protect convoys and other ships from Japanese submarines and fighter aircraft. She performed escort and anti-submarine operations in dangerous battle areas and returned home with seven battle stars, a very high number for a ship of her type.
Namesake
William Cicero Miller was born on 18 July 1919 in Thomasville, North Carolina. He enlisted in the Navy as an apprentice seaman at Raleigh, North Carolina, on 20 October 1937. After instruction at the Naval Training Station, Norfolk, Va., Miller was advanced to the rate of seaman 2d class on 21 February 1938 and joined Scouting Squadron 6, attached to the aircraft carrier , on 30 September of that year. He remained with VS-6 into 1941 and became the rear-seat man for Lt. Clarence E. Dickinson, Jr., around April of that year. On the morning of 7 December 1941, they both boarded their aircraft, a Douglas SBD Dauntless, for what was to be a routine scouting flight. They were under orders to proceed to Ford Island and land there to refuel. Enterprise, together with the rest of Task Force 8, would return later that day.
Dickinson and Miller arrived over Oahu to discover the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor underway. After one of the sections had been shot down by a Japanese fighter, the commander of VS-6, Lt. Comdr. Halstead Hopping, broadcast the word that Pearl Harbor was being attacked. Attacking Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters riddled Dickinson's plane, but Miller, already wounded once, downed one and ultimately exhausted his ammunition in the defense of the aircraft until it had been set afire. Dickinson called for Miller to bail out but received no answer. Dickinson managed to get out of the falling plane; but Miller, either dead or so severely wounded that he was unable to free himself from the aircraft-remained with it until it crashed into a cane field. Miller was awarded a posthumous commendation by the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.
Construction and commissioning
She was laid down on 10 January 1943 at Boston, Massachusetts, by the Boston Navy Yard; launched on 22 February 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Melvin B. Miller, the mother of the late Radioman 3rd Class Miller; and commissioned on 2 July 1943.
World War II Pacific Theater operations
William C. Miller got underway on 19 July, bound for Bermuda. There, she conducted her shakedown before returning to Boston for post-shakedown availability and remained in the navy yard until 27 August, when she sailed for Panama. After transiting the Panama Canal between 1 and 3 September, the destroyer escort arrived at San Diego, California, on the 12th and shifted to San Francisco, California, on the 15th, before sailing for Hawaii nine days later in the screen for Convoy 4796. She returned to the west coast early in the fall but departed San Francisco on 19 October, bound for the Gilbert Islands and "Operation Galvanic".
Battle of Tarawa operations
As a unit of Task Group (TG) 54.9, 5th Fleet, William C. Miller screened the ships of the Tarawa garrison group and patrolled in area "Longsuit" off the invasion beaches into early December. She then guarded the entrance to the lagoon at Tarawa through the middle of the month before departing the Gilberts on Christmas Eve, bound for the Hawaiian Islands.
Participation in major invasions
Reaching Pearl Harbor on 30 December 1943, William C. Miller underwent upkeep alongside the destroyer tender and remained in Hawaiian waters into February 1944. That year was to prove a busy one for the destroyer escort. She earned the other six of her seven battle stars in the next year and one-half operating on screening, escorting, and hunter-killer duties with convoys for the remainder of 1944. During that period, William C. Miller supported the occupation of Kwajalein and Majuro from 29 January to 8 February 1944; the capture of Eniwetok from 17 February to 2 March; the capture and occupation of Saipan from 26 June to 10 August; and the capture and occupation of Tinian from 24 July to 10 August. It was during the Saipan screening operations, however, that the ship avenged the loss of her namesake.