John Stanley Malinowski was 16 — not old enough to enlist in the Naval Reserve in June 1940, but he did anyway.

On his enlistment application he said he was born in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, on Oct. 23, 1921. He was actually born on that date in 1923 to Polish immigrants Stanley Malinowski and Jennie Krol Malinowski. 

The minimum age to enlist in the Reserve was 17. It’s unknown why he lied about his age, but he was hardly alone in doing so. Jobs of any kind, let alone good-paying ones, were hard to come by during the Great Depression and especially so for teens who were competing against experienced older men. On his enlistment application Mr. Malinowski said he’d completed 11th grade and worked as a fruit salesman for eight months.

He left in June 1940 for training in Illinois and by February 1941 was in Hawaii aboard the U.S.S. Arizona. Mr. Malinowski was a signalman and petty officer third class on the battleship when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

His youngest brother, Edward, told the Muskegon Chronicle in 1991 that the family was first told that he was missing. Then, in January 1942, the Navy said he was wounded but alive. He’d been confused with a sailor named Malaski, Edward said. A third telegram to the family delivered the terrible news that John Stanley was dead.

The father was an Army private from March 1918 to August 1919 during World War I.

Sources: the Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle, which reported John’s birth in its Oct. 29, 1923 edition. Other sources include: Michigan marriage record; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; grave marker.