Calvin Graham

Calvin L. Graham served aboard the USS South Dakota in World War II, having enlisted in the post-Pearl Harbor surge of volunteers. The brand-new battleship, designated BB 57, sailed from port in New York on March 20, 1942, completed fitting-out at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and then transited the Panama Canal en route to Pearl Harbor. She arrived there September 12.

The South Dakota’s crew were virtually all green sailors, with the exception of the section chiefs and command staff. Graham was the youngest aboard ship, assigned as a loader on a quad-40mm anti-aircraft mount. Once they sailed from Pearl, assigned as part of a task force which included the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the South Dakota met the Japanese at Santa Cruz Islands, downing twenty-six Japanese planes while protecting the Enterprise.

Eighteen days later the task force engaged in the Battle of Guadalcanal; during fierce fighting the South Dakota had significant damage inflicted from constant Japanese air attacks and ship bombardment. Seaman 2^nd Class Graham, though suffering wounds of his own from shrapnel fragments and burns to his arms, heroically saved several shipmates by dragging them to safety and administering first aid. For his actions Graham was awarded a Bronze Star with Combat ‘V’ ( for valor ) device, along with two Purple Hearts.

Calvin Graham was twelve years old.

That’s right, 12. Graham, one of seven children, had extreme hardship at home because of his alcoholic stepfather’s abuse of he, his siblings and his mother. Graham left the home with one of his brothers and ended up living in a boarding house, eventually joining the Navy by forging his mother’s signature on enlistment papers and claiming to be seventeen. Calvin Graham had told his mother that he was going to live with relatives one hundred fifty miles from their Houston, Texas home when he enlisted; she had no idea that her young son had been a hero in combat off Guadalcanal until she saw his name in the papers. Nora then contacted the Navy and told them what her son had done. Graham was released from service April 1^st, 1943.

Calvin Leon Graham died in 1992, having been the youngest military combatant for the United States during WW II.