When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Americans were understandably enraged. One person was so incensed, in fact, that he fought the US military for his right to fight. When he got his chance, it turned out to be an explosive experience – literally.
Jacklyn Lucas’ early life
Jacklyn Harold “Jack” Lucas was born on February 14, 1928, in Plymouth, North Carolina. Sadly, he was just 10 years old when his father died. Unable to cope with the significant loss in his life, he became quite a handful, forcing his mother to enrol him at the Edwards Military Institute in Salemburg.
It was a good call, as the school gave Lucas the discipline and direction he needed. Already big for his age, he was a natural sportsman, taking up baseball, basketball, softball, wrestling, horseback riding, shooting and hunting.
Then, Pearl Harbor happened.
Fighting to enlist
Jacklyn Lucas was furious. He was 14 years old; five-feet, eight-inches tall; and weighed 180 pounds of mostly muscle. He wanted to fight against the Japanese, but there was a problem. The minimum age for enlistment was 17 – with parental consent.
Lucas begged his mother to lie to the authorities, but she, of course, refused. This didn’t dissuade him one bit. After filling out the consent form and forging his mother’s signature, he arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. Thanks to his training in Salemburg, he passed his rifle qualification with flying colors and was deemed a sharpshooter.
In June 1943, Lucas was serving with the 21st Replacement Battalion at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina. He was subsequently transferred to the 25th Replacement Battalion at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and made a heavy machine gun crewman.
That November, Lucas was assigned to the 6th Base Depot, V Amphibious Corps on Hawaii, excited to be one step closer to his dream of avenging what had taken place at Pearl Harbor. He became a private first class the following year, on January 29.
Jacklyn Lucas was caught lying about his age
Wanting to share his excitement, Jacklyn Lucas wrote to his girlfriend, but she never received the letter. Military censors read it and weren’t happy to find out that he was just 15 years old. However, they needed the manpower, so they assigned him to truck duty on the base.
Lucas then got into fisticuffs with several Marines during this time, which got him court-martialed and sentenced to five months in the stockade. He broke rocks with a diet of bread and water to blunt his temper, but it didn’t work.
Determined to serve overseas
On January 10, 1945, realizing he’d never be allowed to fight in either Europe or the Pacific, Jacklyn Lucas walked out of camp with just his boots and fatigues. He was subsequently declared UA (Unauthorized Absence).
He stowed aboard the USS Deuel (APA-160), which was headed for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. He’d never heard of it and turned himself in on February 8 – just one day before he was officially declared a deserter. As the attack transport couldn’t turn back, Lucas was demoted to the rank of private and reassigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, under Capt. Robert Dunlap of C Company. He became a rifleman.
Jacklyn Lucas’ bravery on Iwo Jima
On February 14, 1945, Jacklyn Lucas turned 17 years old. All he cared about, however, was getting to Iwo Jima, which he reached on February 19. Despite his need for revenge, he later claimed to be grateful for not having been part of the first assault group. In the first day of fighting alone, 2,400 Americans lost their lives.
On February 20, Lucas and three other US Marines were creeping toward an enemy airstrip when they came under heavy fire. They jumped for cover into a nearby trench, but there was another running parallel to it that contained Japanese soldiers.
The two sides exchanged gunfire. Lucas managed to hit two enemy soldiers before his rifle jammed. Furious, he bent over to unjam the weapon when his eyes widened into saucers; on the ground were two grenades. “Grenade!” He yelled as he threw himself onto them, jamming one into the soft ground and covering it with his body while pulling the other one beneath him.
The first of the two exploded, throwing Lucas on his back and severely wounding him in the right arm, wrist, leg, thigh and chest. Over 250 pieces of shrapnel were propelled into his body.
Lucas was barely alive after the blast, but was still holding the other grenade, which didn’t explode. The other three Marines were unhurt. They thought he was dead and left him behind. He came round as another group passed and managed to wave the fingers of his left hand to let them know he was still breathing.
Recipient of the Medal of Honor
Stretcher bearers carried Jacklyn Lucas to the beach, where he had to wait until nightfall to be evacuated. Once transferred to the hospital ship USS Samaritan (AH-10), he underwent the first of 26 surgeries to remove the shrapnel from his body.
Following his actions on Iwo Jima, the “UA” was removed from Lucas’ record and he was made a private first class. On October 5, 1945, he was awarded the Medal of Honor by US President Harry S. Truman, making him the decoration’s youngest recipient since the American Civil War. In 1997, he placed the citation inside the hull of the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), where it’s still sealed.
You might think Lucas would have been done with military service after the Second World War, but you’d be wrong. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army and trained as a paratrooper, going on to survive a fall after both of his parachutes failed during a training jump. He twice more escaped death, running from a fire that destroyed his residence and avoiding a murder plot by his then-wife, daughter and son-in-law.
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On June 5, 2008, Lucas passed away in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at the age of 80. In October 2023, the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer named for him, was commissioned into service with the US Navy.