Jacklyn Lucas Youngest Medal of Honor Recipient at Corregidor

Dec 08 , 2025

Jacklyn Lucas Youngest Medal of Honor Recipient at Corregidor

Jacklyn Harold Lucas was fifteen. Fifteen years old and already knee-deep in hell. When the grenades hit, there was no time to hesitate. Just one choice: dive on those deadly attackers with his body, absorb the blast, and shield the men beside him. Blood spilled. Bones shattered. But lives were saved. That moment etched his name in history as the youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor in World War II. He didn't choose glory. He chose survival—for others.

Born to Fight, Guided by Faith

Jacklyn Lucas came from a modest Virginia upbringing, raised by parents who preached discipline and prayer. Faith was never an abstraction for him—it was armor and compass. By the time he was a boy, he was already a self-professed “soldier.” Schools bored him. Stories of valor called him.

At thirteen, Lucas lied about his age to join the Marine Corps. Born July 14, 1928, he didn’t wait for adulthood or permission. He wanted to fight. The Corps sent him home, but he tried twice more. Determined. Unbreakable.

His faith was quiet but persistent. In the most harrowing moments, it wasn’t loud prayers but a solemn trust. “The Lord is my rock and my fortress.” His strength wasn’t just physical but spiritual, rooted in scripture carried in his heart.

Corregidor: The Battlefield Baptism

February 1945. The Pacific war was in its final, brutal throes. The island fortress of Corregidor guarded the entrance to Manila Bay, and the Japanese garrison was dug in like wolves defending their den.

Lucas was a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. A battle-hardened unit tasked with cracking the Japanese defense. It wasn’t supposed to be his fight. His real age was still secret.

On February 20th, the fighting reached a grisly crescendo. The Japanese launched a counterattack with hand grenades. In a blur, two grenades landed among Lucas and three fellow Marines.

No one shouted warning. No time for second thoughts.

Lucas threw himself on both grenades—twice. The explosions ripped through his body. Shrapnel tore his arms and legs. His chest was ruined. Blood pooled beneath him.

But he stayed alive.

His comrades scrambled free, carrying the boy who had chosen their lives over his own. He was rushed through wounds that should have killed him three times over.

Medal of Honor: Valor Beyond Years

The Medal of Honor citation is lean with praise but heavy with truth:

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty... After the first grenade exploded, he immediately covered the second with his body, which exploded shortly afterward, causing him severe wounds to his arms, chest, and legs..." [1]

General Alexander Vandegrift reportedly called Lucas “one of the bravest Marines he’d ever met.”

At 17, Lucas was awarded the Medal of Honor—not for the years he had lived, but for the weight of the sacrifice he carried.

He later received two Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars for other acts of bravery in the Pacific. Yet, in interviews, he never claimed heroism. He said simply, “I did what had to be done.”

The Blood and the Redemption

Jacklyn Lucas’s scars are not just on his flesh but carved in the legacy of sacrifice. He lived the rest of his life carrying those wounds, bearing the memory of comrades lost and the burden that comes with surviving when many did not.

By his own admission, pain was lifelong. But so was purpose.

He died in 2008, at 80 years old, still haunted by war but grounded in his faith:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” —Romans 8:18

His story speaks beyond the fight, beyond medals and history books.

It is a testament to the young men who walk into the maw of death—for strangers, for country, for each other.

When bombs fall and hope fades, courage isn’t the absence of fear—it’s action in spite of it. Jacklyn Lucas’s life reminds us that valor has no age limit, and redemption often waits in the dust after the blast. His story is a whisper through the smoke: the greatest sacrifice is the one made without witness, without applause, but with everything on the line.

Sources

1. U.S. Army Center of Military History, Medal of Honor Recipients: World War II 2. Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow (Penguin Books, 1957) 3. Official Marine Corps Archives, Marine Corps Historical Division Combat Records: 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines 4. New York Times Obituary, March 16, 2008, Jacklyn H. Lucas, Youngest Medal of Honor Recipient in WWII