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

Journalist Maurer (coauthor, No Easy Day) delivers a comprehensive account of bomber pilot John “Lucky” Luckadoo’s experiences during WWII. Though required to fly 25 missions, most bomber crew members only made it to 10, Maurer notes, “before they either got wounded, captured after being shot down, or lost their lives altogether.” A college freshman when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Lucky dreamed of being a fighter pilot but was too tall to fit into the cockpit and trained to fly B-17s instead. Assigned to a squadron based in England near the North Sea, Lucky and his fellow crew members faced fierce attacks from German fighter planes and endured cold so intense it could freeze their masks, cutting off the flow of oxygen. (On one mission, flak opened a hole in the plane’s plexiglass nose cone and caused a severe case of frostbite on Lucky’s feet.) Drawing on extensive interviews with Lucky (99 years old at the time of writing), Maurer recounts each mission in cinematic detail and vividly evokes the emotional toll taken by the air war’s heavy casualties. In an afterword, Lucky writes that “war is futile and foolish. There are no victors, only victims.” This somber and well-crafted biography is a fitting tribute to its resolute subject. (Apr.)