Exclusive: Navy weighs renaming carrier slated to honor Black war hero, potentially switching it to Trump

By Haley Britzky, Pamela Brown, CNN

(CNN) — The US Navy is working to rename an aircraft carrier under construction that was set to honor a Black sailor hailed for his heroic actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor, three sources familiar with internal discussions told CNN.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Navy announced that the Ford-class carrier would be called the USS Doris Miller, recognizing an enlisted sailor who helped defend US forces from Japan’s attack.

It’s unclear what the Navy is seeking to change the name of the carrier to, though two of the sources said there have been internal conversations about renaming it to honor Trump. It would be an unprecedented move to name an aircraft carrier after a sitting president.

The Navy is looking instead to rename another warship after Miller, according to one of the sources, and is recommending him for the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for military valor. The final authorization for the award is up to Congress and approval from Trump.

Thomas Bledsoe, Miller’s great-nephew, said Miller’s family had not been informed of the change or the renewed effort to award his great-uncle with the Medal of Honor. The family has been working to get him the Medal of Honor “for years,” Bledsoe said, and called the Navy’s move to recommend the honor “very positive.”

The Navy directed questions from CNN to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A Department of Defense spokesperson said they had nothing to announce at this time.

The effort to rename the USS Doris Miller has been underway since earlier this year, the sources said. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao and his office have also been looking into updating the official guidance for how ships should be named and specifying who they can be named after, including presidents, two of the sources said.

Amid conversations over the ship’s name, the Navy has effectively stopped referring to the ship as the USS Doris Miller internally and is only calling it by its hull number, CVN-81, one of the sources said. A recent White House executive order on shipbuilding also referred to the ship only as CVN-81, tasking the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy to report back with a plan to replace the ship’s electromagnetic aircraft launch system with steam and hydraulic systems.

The Navy is under a time crunch to finalize the name of the carrier as the ship’s keel-laying ceremony is expected at the end of this year. The ceremony is a public event marking an important step in a ship’s construction. The ship is not expected to be delivered until 2034, USNI News first reported, due to shipbuilder constraints.

Former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced the new carrier’s name in honor of Miller in January 2020, during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ceremony in Pearl Harbor.

“Dorie Miller was the son of a sharecropper,” Modly, a Trump nominee who had Navy leadership positions from 2017 to 2020, said at the ceremony, according to a Navy release. “And, he was an American sailor – so designated by the uniform that he wore — the same uniform all sailors wore, and still wear, regardless of race, ethnic background, or political persuasion.”

Doris “Dorie” Miller, from Waco, Texas, enlisted in the US Navy in 1939, according to the National Museum of the Pacific War. On the day of Japan’s attack, Miller — a Mess Attendant Third Class at the time — was retrieving laundry when bombs began falling on the US fleet. Mess attendant was one of the only jobs in the Navy open to Black men, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. Damage by Japan’s attack kept him from returning to his assigned battle station.

Miller proceeded to aid his wounded commanding officer, and then, despite having received no training on the system, took control of an anti-aircraft gun and opened fire on the Japanese aircraft.

“Although untrained,” the VA’s website says, “he laid down effective fire and stopped firing when he ran out of ammunition and the ship began to sink. Even then, he persisted in helping his fellow sailors to safety until he finally made his way to shore.”

Miller was famously portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor.

In 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz presented Miller with the Navy Cross, and he was then sent out on a War Bond tour with several white service members, “making him the first African American allowed on the speaking tour,” according to the VA. Roughly a year later, Miller was killed during the Battle of Makin when his ship was hit by a Japanese submarine’s torpedo.

The Navy convened a renaming commission in 2025 under former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, to review how ships and other military assets were named. Phelan believes aircraft carriers specifically should be named only after presidents, Navy admirals, and consequential Navy battles, a person familiar with his thinking said. While secretary, Phelan requested a study be done by the Naval History & Heritage Command on the issue, but he was removed as Navy Secretary before the review was complete, the source said, adding that Phelan did not weigh in officially on the Doris Miller specifically.

The Navy commission came amid broader efforts in the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to remove names selected for what the administration considers diversity, equity, and inclusion purposes.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for example, immediately sought to revert the names of US Army bases honoring Confederate Army officers by finding other military personnel that shared last names with those confederate officers. And in 2025, he took a rare step and ordered the Secretary of the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, which honored the Navy veteran and gay rights activist.

It’s highly unusual for a ship to be renamed after its commissioning. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said at the time of the Harvey Milk’s renaming that Hegseth was committed to names “reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos.”

The choice of USS Doris Miller marked the first time an aircraft carrier would honor an enlisted sailor, and the first aircraft carrier to be named for an African American. Asked about his decision to name the carrier after Miller, Modly told CNN that it was recommended to him by a group of retired Black admirals, and that he believes “one of our most powerful warships should bear the name of a sailor like Miller to bring greater attention to what makes our Navy so unique — and great.”

“Ultimately, these names are meant to be symbolic and unifying for the Navy, and the nation it serves,” Modly told CNN. “When they are named for people like Doris Miller, they raise broader awareness of the heroism, patriotism and sacrifices of all American sailors — not merely their commanders.”

Many of the US’ active aircraft carriers are named after past US presidents, to including the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS George H.W. Bush, USS Ronald Regan, and USS George Washington, though none of those ships first set sail while their namesakes were in office. But not all carriers are named after presidents. The USS Nimitz, for example, is named after the admiral who commanded the US Pacific Fleet during World War II. The USS Carl Vinson is named after a Georgia congressman who chaired the House Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committee.

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