The youngest American to serve in World War II, Calvin Graham lied his way into the Navy at 12 years old, eventually earning the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and time in jail.
by Johnny Kincaid
NOVEMBER 11, 2024
After Pearl Harbor, Americans sought every opportunity to serve our nation’s war effort. Teenage boys tried to sign up for the military before reaching the legal age, but one stood out because he hadn’t even reached his teens.
Calvin Graham was 11 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and he began preparing to join the military. He started shaving, convinced it would make him look older than he was, and he practiced speaking in a deep voice, pretending to talk like a man.
The minimum age for enlistment was 17, although a 16-year-old could join with his parent’s permission.
Graham forged his mother’s signature on his enlistment papers and stole a notary stamp from a local hotel. Graham told his mother he was going to visit relatives — and instead lined up to enlist with the Navy in Houston, Texas on August 15, 1942.
Calvin Graham was accepted into the Navy and assigned to the USS South Dakota, a warship working alongside the USS Enterprise in the Pacific. Just months after after Graham arrived on board, the ship battled eight Japanese destroyers during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
At one point, shrapnel hit Graham square in the face, tearing through his jaw and mouth. And he fell three stories. Graham got up and pulled sailors to safety and sat with them through the night.
“I took belts off the dead and made tourniquets for the living and gave them cigarettes and encouraged them all night,” Graham later told Smithsonian Magazine. “It was a long night. It aged me.”
Calvin Graham received a Purple Heart for his injuries and a Bronze Star for distinguished combat. But, his mother called the Navy and reported him.
Immediately, the Navy threw Graham into a military prison and stripped him of his medals.
Calvin Graham didn’t receive an honorable discharge until 1978 and didn’t receive disability benefits and back pay until 1988. Jimmy Carter, a fellow Navy man, announced that he would be re-awarded his medals. And in 1988, he was finally granted disability benefits and back pay.
