J.D. Miller; Battleship Arizona Survivor

Jim Dick Miller, an ensign aboard the battleship Arizona who was one of the last men to leave the crippled ship and received the Navy Cross for valor during and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, has died.

Miller died at his home in Coronado, Calif., on Jan. 19. He was 82 and the cause of death was Alzheimer’s disease.

In a naval career that lasted more than 30 years, Miller retired as a captain, the highest rank held by any Arizona survivor. His voice is still heard in the recorded narrative at Honolulu’s Arizona Memorial.

Miller attended Navy submarine school after Pearl Harbor and, after graduating in June 1942, was stationed on the Sargo-class submarine Spearfish, first as chief engineer, then executive officer and finally commanding officer. The submarine sank 26 enemy ships while operating in the Pacific. Miller was awarded a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.

After the war, he took on a variety of assignments including a 1946 Arctic expedition, commanding officer of the Razorback, a Balao-class submarine, and command of submarine divisions in San Diego and then Pearl Harbor. He commanded the submarine tender Bushnell, based in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis, and served on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His final duty post was as commander of the Gulf sub-area of the Military Sea Transportation Service based in New Orleans.

But Miller would always be linked to the Arizona. His voice dramatically recalls memories of that fateful Sunday morning sneak attack on Dec. 7, 1941, in the narration at the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

In 1991, he appeared with NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw on a special program marking the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack. In an interview that year with Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, Miller offered a vivid recollection of the attack.

“I ordered my men out of the [gun] turret to fight the fires and take care of the injured,” Miller recalled. “The whole forward part of the ship was burning. I remember the ship’s cook walking out through the wall of flames saying, ‘Help me, help me.’ He was on fire, but he was still on his feet. I helped to get him in a boat. . . . Those who were on their feet and injured, it was from the tremendous fire or shrapnel. It is all vivid in my mind.

“I did not see any of the attacking planes. The noise must have been terrific, yet the noise is not pressed into my mind. I recall walking down the deck and some machine gun bullets were digging in the wood right alongside me. They must have come from a plane passing over. The bullets were hitting the deck about two or three feet away from me. But in that condition, you really don’t worry--the surprise aspect of the thing is most vivid.”

Miller was in the last boatload that left the Arizona. He took charge of a motor launch and used it to rescue men from mooring quays and from the water.

The Arizona sank that day, but the fire aboard the ship continued to burn until midweek. More than 1,175 lives were lost in the attack.

Born in Van Buren, Ark., the eldest of seven brothers and sisters, Miller grew up on the Texas Panhandle and dreamed of joining the Navy. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1935, graduated in 1939 and was immediately assigned to the Arizona, whose home port was then Los Angeles Harbor.

Miller met his future wife, Mary Jane Sullivan, while stationed in Los Angeles. They were married on St. Patrick’s Day in 1943.

After his 30-year military career, Miller returned to college and earned a master’s degree in mathematics from North Carolina State University. He settled in Coronado and, for the next decade, taught mathematics at a variety of community colleges in the San Diego area.

He is survived by his two sons, four grandchildren, three brothers and three sisters.

Funeral services will be held at noon Wednesday at Graham Memorial Presbyterian Church in Coronado, immediately followed by services with full military honors at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, Point Loma, San Diego.