Hello fellow Texans and friends of Texas. Today is Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Texan Doris Miller honored for heroics during attack on Pearl Harbor< On Dec. 7, 1941, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Texas native Doris Miller, a mess steward on the USS West Virginia, responded courageously. When the West Virginia was attacked, he went on deck and manned an unattended deck gun. It was Millers first experience firing such a weapon because black sailors serving in the segregated stewards branch of the navy were not given gunnery training. Although later news stories credited Miller with downing from two to five airplanes, these accounts have never been verified. Miller himself told navy officials he thought he hit one plane. The navy awarded him the Navy Cross for bravery in battle. Miller, called the first African-American hero of World War II, was born in Willow Grove, near Waco, on Oct. 12, 1919. Less than a month before his 20th birthday, he enlisted in the United States Navy at its Dallas recruiting station and was a Mess Attendant Second Class on Dec. 7. Miller was collecting soiled laundry when the first bombs blasted his ship at anchor in Pearl Harbor. He went to the main deck, where he assisted in moving the mortally wounded captain. He then raced to an unattended deck gun and fired at the attacking planes until forced to abandon ship. Navy officials conferred the Navy Cross upon Miller on May 27, 1942, in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor. Following a Christmas leave in 1942, when he saw his home and family in Waco for the last time, Miller reported to duty aboard the aircraft carrier Liscome Bay (or Liscomb Bay) as a mess attendant, first class. During the battle of the Gilbert Islands, on Nov. 24, 1943, his ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Pacific Ocean, and Miller perished. At that time, he had been promoted to cook, third class, and probably worked in the ships galley. In addition to conferring upon him the Navy Cross, the Navy honored Doris Miller by naming a dining hall, a barracks, and a destroyer escort for him. The USS Miller is the third naval ship to be named after a black navy man. In Waco, a YMCA branch, a park, and a cemetery bear his name. In Houston and in Philadelphia, elementary schools have been named for him, as has a Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter in Los Angeles. An auditorium on the campus of Huston-Tillotson College in Austin is dedicated to his memory. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Milam killed while leading attack to retake Bexar< On Dec. 7, 1835, Ben Milam, who organized and led an attack on Mexican troops at San Antonio, was shot in the head by a sniper and died instantly. Milam joined Texan volunteers in the Goliad Campaign of 1835. He led 300 volunteers in the attack, which began at dawn on Dec. 5 and ended on Dec. 9 with the surrender of Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos and the Mexican army. Milam was killed when the Texas Revolution was just getting underway. But his leadership prior to his death helped inspire his fellow Texans to retake San Antonio in 1835 at the Siege of Bexar, and ultimately to win Texas independence. When killed, Milam was standing with Frank Johnson and Henry Karnes. He fell into the arms of Samuel Maverick. He had been trying to observe the San Fernando church tower with a field telescope given to him by Stephen Austin. Robert Morris was chosen to take over Milam’s command of the first division. The Mexican Army had more than 400 killed, deserted or wounded in the ensuing battle. Texan losses were only 20 to 30 killed. Morris gave Cos and his troops six days to leave the Alamo. Burleson provided the Mexican Army with as much supplies as he could spare, and the Mexican wounded were allowed to remain behind to be treated by Texan doctors. Milam was born Oct. 20, 1788 in Kentucky. He lived until joining the American forces in the War of 1812. After the war, he and a friend floated a large shipment of flour down the Mississippi to New Orleans. By 1818, Milam was trading with Comanche Indians on the upper Colorado River in Texas. There, he met David G. Burnet, who after an accident was being nursed back to health by the Indians. The two men became close friends. The next year, Milam returned to New Orleans and joined an expedition to aid Mexican patriots seeking independence from Spain. There, he met and formed a close friendship with James Long, husband of Jane Long. For several years, Milam assisted empresario Arthur Wavell in developing Wavells grant on the Red River, but the venture failed. Milam joined Texan volunteers in the Goliad Campaign of 1835. Soon afterwards, Stephen Austin placed him in charge of a company of scouts to determine the best routes over which to retake San Antonio in the Siege of Bexar. Milam and Frank W. Johnson each lead a group of volunteers in house-to-house combat during the retaking of the town. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Community remains although Smithwick banished from state< On Dec. 7, 1830, Noah Smithwick was banished from Texas as a bad citizen. Smithwick, born in North Carolina in 1808, came to Texas in 1827 and eventually settled in San Felipe. When San Felipe authorities ordered a friend of his who was accused of murder chained with leg irons, Smithwick, a blacksmith by trade, provided a file and a gun so he might escape. As a result, the authorities tried Smithwick, declared him a bad citizen, and banished him from Austins colony and Texas, providing an escort as far as the Sabine River. Smithwick returned to Matagorda in the fall of 1835 and reached Gonzales the day after the battle of Gonzales. He served in the Texas Revolution, married, and after an unsuccessful stint as a Williamson County cattle rancher established a mill near Marble Falls. With the coming of the Civil War, the Unionist Smithwick received threats and decided to abandon Texas. He sold his property and, with a number of friends, left Burnet County for southern California in 1861. In California, Smithwick gradually lost his eyesight but dictated his memoirs to his daughter. After his death in 1899, she had the manuscript published by Karl H.P.N. Gammel. Smithwick was formed by the merging of Hickory Creek, Elm Grove and Smithwick Mills. Hickory Creek, which had a church and a school, was established in the early 1850s. Elm Grove was a school community near Post Oak Creek. Smithwick Mills was named for the mill built by Noah Smithwick in the 1850s. A post office was established at Smithwick Mills in 1871. The name was changed to Smithwick in 1882, although the school district was known as Hickory Creek until at least the mid-1920s. Smithwick reached its peak in the mid-1880s, when it had a water-powered gristmill, a church, a school, and 150 residents. Cotton was the principal shipment made by area farmers. The number of residents declined rapidly after the completion in 1889 of the Marble Falls extension of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad a few miles to the west. The post office was discontinued in 1926. The Smithwick school was consolidated with the Marble Falls Independent School District in 1951. In the 1980s Smithwick had a church, a community center and a cemetery. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Also on Dec. 7 in Texas: • In 1834, Fort Worth banking pioneer Martin Bottom Loyd was born in Kentucky. He moved to Texas in 1860 and became captain of a Texas Ranger Frontier Regiment during the Civil War. After five years selling wild cattle in South Texas and other enterprises, Loyd opened an “exchange office” which evolved into the First National Bank and was chartered in 1877. When Fort Worth was incorporated in 1873, Loyd served on the first board of aldermen. • In 1925, the West Texas Historical and Scientific Society was organized at Alpine. It was chartered in 1926. The first publication, Sul Ross State Teachers College Bulletin, came out in December 1926, and 10 years later the society secured funding for a permanent museum (now the Museum of the Big Bend) located on the Sul Ross campus. • In 1955, the board of trustees of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts issued a statement that they would exhibit and acquire works of art only on the basis of their merit as works of art. The statement was a reaction to the so-called red art controversy, which reflected the citys generally conservative cultural climate. • In 2009, more than 4,000 people attended the grand opening ceremony of the George H.W. Bush Gallery of the War in the Pacific Museum in Fredericksburg, the birth place of U.S. Navy Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. The gallery is a $15.5-million, 32,500 square foot expansion and part of the National Museum of the Pacific War, the only museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to telling the story of the Pacific theater in World War II. • • • • • • Texas History Day-by-Day is compiled by retired newspaper journalist Bob Sonderegger (anglebob61@yahoo). A primary source of information is Handbook of Texas Online. Your comments or additions are welcome.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 13:44:02 +0000