The M1 & M2 Carbine and The Story of War Hero Jack Lucas

 

At age 17, Jack Lucas was the youngest recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor in the history of the US Marine Corps.

 The carbine was popular with both ARVN and Viet Cong troops during the war in Vietnam.

In August of 1942, Jack Lucas forged his mother’s name on an enlistment document and fraudulently enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was fourteen years old at the time. His was a muscular build, so he could pass for an adult in dim light.

After successfully completing training as a machine gunner he was assigned to the V Amphibious Corps at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. By all accounts, he was an exemplary Marine. When his commander discovered his true age it was resolved to sideline Jack so he could avoid combat and grow old in peace. In response, Jack went AWOL carrying nothing more than his dungarees and field shoes and stowed away aboard an assault transport ship headed for Iwo Jima. One day before he was to have been declared a deserter Lucas turned himself into Captain Robert Dunlap and was assigned to Dunlap’s rifle company. Lucas celebrated his 17^th birthday five days before the Iwo Jima invasion.

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