Steward’s Mate Second Class Miles Davis King carries a loaded magazine to his 20mm gun aboard USS Tulagi, on the way to the invasion of southern France, August 1944. U.S. Navy, National Archives. Click the photo to see it larger.
A young sailor in a steel helmet looks off past the camera, a heavy steel drum balanced on his shoulder. On top of the drum, the brass of a 20mm shell catches the light. The Navy’s caption gives his name and what he’s carrying: “Crewmen aboard U.S.S. Tulagi (CVE-72) en route to southern France for Aug. 15th invasion. Miles Davis King, StM 2/c, carrying a loaded magazine to his 20mm gun.” It was August 1944, and the escort carrier Tulagi was sailing to the invasion of southern France.
The Magazine
The drum on King’s shoulder fed an Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft gun. Tulagi carried 20 of them, each on its own mount. The Oerlikon took its shells from a 60-round drum magazine that sat on top of the gun. In steady firing, the drums had to be changed again and again, so full ones had to be ready at hand. King carries this one with both hands, a wristwatch on the wrist that holds it up.
Steward’s Mate and Gunner
King’s rating, StM 2/c, means steward’s mate second class. Steward’s mates served the officers in the wardroom. But the caption says this was his own gun. In battle, his post was the 20mm. The National Archives includes this photo, number 87, in its list of pictures of African Americans during World War II. Another photo on that list, from July 1942, shows Black messmen on a cruiser in the Pacific “who volunteered for additional duty as gunners” and were “doing proficient work under battle conditions.”
To Southern France
Tulagi reached Norfolk, Virginia, on June 17, 1944. At the end of June she sailed from Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, with Rear Admiral Calvin T. Durgin aboard in command of her task group, and crossed the Atlantic to Oran, Algeria, training along the way. She stopped at Malta on July 26 and spent the next weeks rehearsing for the landing.
The invasion of southern France, called Operation Dragoon, began on August 15, 1944. That morning Tulagi steamed 45 miles off the beach, and at 5:46 a.m. she launched her first flight of F6F Hellcat fighters. In the next week her planes flew 68 missions and 276 sorties, flying spotting missions and striking gun emplacements and railways ashore. On August 21, her last day in the operation, with the German army in retreat, her fliers hit a German convoy so hard they jammed the roads for miles around Remoulins, and they shot down three German Junkers Ju 52 transports.
About This Photo
- Archive title: “Crewmen aboard U.S.S. Tulagi (CVE-72) en route to southern France for Aug. 15th invasion. Miles Davis King, StM 2/c, carrying a loaded magazine to his 20mm gun.”
- Date: August 1944
- Place: Aboard the escort carrier USS Tulagi (CVE-72), in the Mediterranean on the way to southern France
- Photographer: U.S. Navy (the record doesn’t give a name)
- Collection: General Photographic Files, General Records of the Department of the Navy (Record Group 80), National Archives at College Park, Maryland
- Photo number: Archives number 80-G-417623, National Archives Identifier 520763
- Also listed in: Pictures of African Americans During World War II, National Archives, number 87
- Rights: Public domain, a work of the U.S. government
- Restoration: KNOWOL, 2026, from the Archives’ scan of the print
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