Damn Lucky: One Man's Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History

Damn Lucky is the story of John Luckadoo! He was a B-17 pilot flying missions over Germany from mid 1943 to early 1944. That time frame was particularly harrowing for pilots of the Eighth Air Force. The German Luftwaffe was comprised of battle-hardened professional pilots who pressed their attacks on the B-17 Bomber crews. The B-17 losses at that time of the war were staggering! This book will make you sweat just reading it! You are in the cockpit flying through the flak and Me-109, Fw-190 attacks and enduring the hostile conditions 25 thousand ft over Germany. You experience the shock of seeing neighboring B-17s simply vanish as they are struck by enemy fire. The courage it took to complete 25 missions as a B-17 bomber crew is a true testimony to what that generation of men were all about. This is a book that tells it like it was......and don't forget.... these guys were in their early twenties and taking on great responsibilities. That is something that today's generation probably couldn't even fathom.

If you like WW II books, and especially aviation book as I do you will really enjoy this book. Very well researched and written, it gives the story from both sides. It actually gave me a better understanding of the German pilots and the war and, most importantly, a different perspective on the Germans as people. Great read.

There is a reason that WWII generation was called the "Greatest Generation". It gives you a unique perspective of the life of a very young and brave man who piloted a B-17 Bomber during WWII. The stories and memories are still sharp in spite of the fact that "Lucky" is now 100 years old! I highly recommend this book!

I greatly enjoyed this retelling of Jphn Luckadoo's story. He was indeed lucky to have survived the early days of the air war. An emotional story. Thank you.

This book is well written, but the reader is left with a sense of hopeless nihilism by the time it is finished. There is nothing happy about the story except that “Lucky” Luckadoo does survive the war. It is interesting if one is reading for academic interest, but if I were reading it for entertainment I’d instead watch a movie like “Twelve O’clock High” or “Catch 22”.The bomber crews of the Eight Air Force were reminiscent of those hapless Scots under British command who were mowed down like wheat in the Battle of New Orleans, or the Spartans at Thermopylae. Flying with them was a death sentence which was seldom commuted.

Excellent book about a WWII B-17 pilot's missions over Germany. This book is a keeper for WWII history buffs.

This is a must read for everyone. Hope to fiind more like this one. What an appropriate name Lucky. Thanks Kevin

Damn Lucky is the story of John Luckadoo, a B17 Pilot from WW2 who saw combat over Europe during the hardest days of the aerial campaign.Mr. Luckadoo and his best friend wanted to enlist before the United States was pulled into what will be known as WW2. After parting ways, both end up serving in Europe. Mr. Luckadoo's stories about what it was like to fly a B17 and be part of the crew are astonishing to those of us who have never experienced something similar.This is a book that is guaranteed to keep you glued as you realize the sacrifices these young men needed to do to complete their missions and the things they had to witness while completing their missions.I am sure that Mr. Luckadoo's story will one day be a movie about this story that needs to be told. Probably what I respect most about him is that he does not feel like a hero, he was just one young man, together with many more young men who had a mission to complete and they did despite the very real risk of death.

Good read, even for me as an interested German.Worth buying.I only wished the Americans would refrain from the bad habit of calling every WWII german thing "Nazi". There was no such thing as Nazi Flak, for example.