Donald Trump: Naval Engineer
In the latest episode of “Trump knows best,” the president has ordered the Navy to abandon the electromagnetic catapult system used on the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers and revert to old-fashioned steam catapults. More troubling, he also wants the Navy to move the carrier command center towers to mimic the look of the World War II towers. Both redesigns will cost billions of dollars. Gee I didn’t know that the president was a carrier design engineer.
The catapult order directs the Navy to tear the current system out of ships already built and reinstall the older technology, again at a cost of billions of dollars. The president reportedly told Time Magazine way back in 2017 that he’d instructed the Navy to go back to “goddamn steam.” His reasoning isn’t entirely clear, beyond his claim that the new system is “too complex.” Apparently, he has restated his order.
The Navy disagrees. It has repeatedly touted the success of the Ford’s electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting gear, which let the carrier launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its Nimitz-class predecessors. The fourth ship in the class — to be named the Doris Miller — and all remaining new ships will revert to the steam system, while the first three carriers, the Ford, the John F. Kennedy, and the Enterprise, will keep the electromagnetic system.
The numbers make the steam-catapult decision harder to justify. Data show the Ford, with its newer system, costs roughly $100 million less per year to operate than a Nimitz-class ship. But apparently none of that matters, because Trump knows best. This is just his latest foray into military design including negotiations over Air Force One and the F-35 fighter program, directed design changes to the Constellation-class frigate, and championed the creation of Trump-class battleships.
Sen. Mark Kelly — hardly a Trump ally, but also a former Navy test pilot with a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering and hundreds of carrier launches to his name — put it bluntly: even with all that experience, he said, he still wouldn’t presume to tell the Navy how to engineer its own ships.
So expect the Navy to slow-walk this change and the one moving the towers and hope to revert to the more efficient, less costly designs once Trump, the military engineer, leaves office. In the meantime, anyone curious about just how complex building an aircraft carrier really is should pick up Michael Fabey’s Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America’s Supercarriers — Virginia Steelworkers Forge the World’s Most Powerful Naval Weapon.
You probably are wondering why the newest Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, is named after a woman. Actually, no. The naming is historic for a different reason. Doris “Dorie” Miller was the first black sailor awarded the Navy Cross. He was also nominated for the Medal of Honor but was denied by a racist Navy Secretary. Miller was a mess attendant second class aboard the battleship USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor.
During the attack, Miller helped carry wounded sailors to safety, then despite having no gunnery training took to an anti-aircraft gun. Navy records officially credit him with downing one enemy plane, though Miller and other witnesses ay he shot down several more. Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded Miller the Navy Cross on May 27, 1942, but many felt his heroism warranted the Medal of Honor too. His name was put forward for the higher honor, but Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, who opposed allowing black sailors to serve in combat roles, recommended against the award.
Miller was promoted to cook third class in June 1943. That November, he was killed in action when his ship, the escort carrier Liscome Bay, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during the Battle of Makin in the Gilbert Islands — the deadliest sinking of a carrier in U.S. Navy history, with 702 officers and sailors lost.
I am somewhat surprised that President Trump has allowed the carrier to be named for Miller. Rep. Kweisi Mfume reintroduced legislation to have Miller awarded the metal posthumously along with the Congressional Gold Metal. But it has languished. I doubt if it will go through because the Defense Department’s webpages chronicling the heroism of Miller have been eliminated following a directive to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content from all Pentagon platforms. Trump and Pete Hegseth know no shame.
Dorie Miller may have never received the Medal of Honor, but he arguably has received something greater: an aircraft carrier bearing his name.
Doris (Dorie) Miller 1919-1943 RIP
haroldblackphd.com 
I’m now to a point of being seldom surprised but frequently disgusted by this arrogant moron sitting in the Oval, picking silly fights with reporters, amd acting as if he’s the Dear Leader of a repressive regime. No wonder he fawns at Kim Jong Im…two fatheads with a similar worldview.
So…Doris must be the character played by Cuba Gooding, Jr in “Pearl Harbor?” What an amazing man. Heroic, humble, loyal, duty bound. All characteristics Trump exhibits to himself but nobody else.
When he loses the midterms (and it will be HIS loss as a choker), democrats will be free to move about Washington again. Maybe some smart republicans will have the spine to team up with the liberals in his inevitable impeachment and get him out of there.
Not holding my breath.
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I don’t watch movies so I did not know that there was one (Pearl Harbor) in which showed the heroism of Dorie Miller. Thank you. But isn’t it interesting that the president who brought us DOGE would make the military waste billions of dollars on his whims?
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Pearl Harbor’s first hour is great, then it flips to more of a romance novel….Cuba played a great role (as he always does).
As for your DOGE comment….whither Tim Burchett? Instead of chasing down government largesse, he’s more consumed with UFOs. I’m truly exhausted with the lack of concern across all of our representatives who fail daily to care about our fiscal debt, and shoring up programs such as social security (if any of them had the guts and brains to scream from the mountaintop about a market based program, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are).
Where are the conservatives??? At least these silly DSA nut jobs have chutzpah…
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And btw…the article in the WSJ about Costco and their budding Medicare program is intriguing and inspirational. They may have liberal leanings, but they understand how to drive loyalty through superior quality and value.
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And one other unrelated comment….IF – as Trump purports – the US is in control of the Strait of Hormuz, then why hasn’t he renamed it the Strait of Trump, amd more realistically, why haven’t we immediately returned to passage of 130 ships per day? He sounds so stupid when he says these things, and imputes his stupidity to rational Americans
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I would love to see the numbers on the operational costs comparison between the electromagnetic catapult and the steam catapult. $100 million a year pays for a lot of stuff. Do you have some data to back that up?
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its buried in the pile of stuff I read to write this post. But here is an earlier projection of cost savings https://thehill.com/policy/defense/333681-why-the-navy-is-switching-from-goddamned-steam-catapults/
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So its just a Navy statement? Where is the GAO?
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Thank you for the mention of Doris Miller.
Working in a hospital, I met 2 survivors of Pearl Harbor. And one relative of a deceased. The two would not talk about what happened that day. The relative without prompting just talked about his brother going down in a ship, trapped and drowning..
The African American Registry adds about Doris Miller:
..”Only 272 sailors survived the sinking of Liscome Bay, and 646 died. In addition to the Navy Cross, Miller was *entitled to* the Purple Heart Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the Fleet Clasp, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal…”
And adds that Secy Knox had commended Miller for the Navy Cross.
Why Knox didn’t go further is of course a question of culture and politics…
US Naval Institute News adds …” Previous to the planned carrier, the Knox-class frigate USS Miller (FF-1091) was named in honor of Miller..
USNI News also adds: …”Without him really knowing, he actually was a part of the civil rights movement because he changed the thinking in the Navy,” Doreen Ravenscroft, with the Doris Miller Memorial in Waco, Texas, told the Star-Advertiser….
In looking up the role of Pres. Trump in naming the carrier after Miller, I found this description: “90,000 tons of diplomacy..”
Waco Tx, Miller’s birthplace, has a statue and park dedicated to Miller.
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Thanks for the information. I had forgotten to mention the frigate. I didn’t know about the other awards. Now give him the Medal of Honor.
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“ Entitled to” is how the other awards are listed- implying he didn’t get them. But I don’t know…
Secy Knox may have been a racist, but the African American Registry gives him some consideration, to realize he made decisions based on a time and politics.
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