At an age when most boys are worrying about pre-algebra, Calvin Graham was loading a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun on the USS South Dakota during the night battle of Guadalcanal. This episode pieces together the life of the youngest known U.S. serviceman of World War II, from a fractured home in Houston to enlistment in August 1942, six weeks of boot camp in San Diego, and deployment to the Pacific just eight months after Pearl Harbor, when overwhelmed recruiters were not checking birth certificates.

We follow him through the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and the November 1942 fight in which the South Dakota absorbed 42 hits and was publicly renamed Battleship X. Wounded by shrapnel, Graham helped pull crewmates from the water and earned a Bronze Star with V device and a Purple Heart. Then came the bureaucratic collapse: an AWOL trip to his gr ...