
Damn Lucky
One Man's Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History
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Narrated by:
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Holter Graham
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John Luckadoo
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By:
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Kevin Maurer
About this listen
From Kevin Maurer—the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning coauthor of No Easy Day—comes the true story of a World War II bomber pilot who survived twenty-five missions in Damn Lucky, “an epic, thrillingly written, utterly immersive account of a very lucky, incredible survivor of the war in the skies to defeat Hitler” (New York Times bestselling author Alex Kershaw).
“We were young citizen-soldiers, terribly naive and gullible about what we would be confronted with in the air war over Europe and the profound effect it would have upon every fiber of our being for the rest of our lives. We were all afraid, but it was beyond our power to quit. We volunteered for the service and, once trained and overseas, felt we had no choice but to fulfill the mission assigned. My hope is that this book honors the men with whom I served by telling the truth about what it took to climb into the cold blue and fight for our lives over and over again.”—John “Lucky” Luckadoo, Major, USAF (Ret.) 100th Bomb Group (H)
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was a world away from John Luckadoo’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But when the Japanese attacked the American naval base on December 7, 1941, he didn’t hesitate to join the military. Trained as a pilot with the United States Air Force, Second Lieutenant Luckadoo was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group stationed in Thorpe Abbotts, England. Between June and October 1943, he flew B-17 Flying Fortresses over France and Germany on bombing runs devised to destroy the Nazi war machine.
With a shrapnel torn Bible in his flight jacket pocket and his girlfriend’s silk stocking around his neck like a scarf as talismans, Luckadoo piloted through Luftwaffe machine-gun fire and antiaircraft flak while enduring subzero temperatures to complete twenty-five missions and his combat service. The average bomber crew rarely survived after eight to twelve missions. Knowing far too many airmen who wouldn’t be returning home, Luckadoo closed off his emotions and focused on his tasks to finish his tour of duty one moment at a time, realizing his success was more about being lucky than being skilled.
Drawn from Luckadoo’s firsthand accounts, acclaimed war correspondent Kevin Maurer shares his extraordinary tale from war to peacetime, uncovering astonishing feats of bravery during the bloodiest military campaign in aviation history, and presenting an incredible portrait of a young man’s coming-of-age during the world’s most devastating war.
This program includes a bonus conversation between John "Lucky" Luckadoo and the author.
©2022 Kevin Maurer (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.
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Depth of Detail was incredible!
- By Gentry S on 03-19-24
By: Donald L. Miller
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Clean Sweep
- VIII Fighter Command Against the Luftwaffe, 1942–45
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, BrigGen Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson USAF (Ret.) - foreword
- Narrated by: Lance C. Fuller
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 7, 1942, two events of major military importance occurred on separate sides of the planet. In the South Pacific, the United States went on the offensive, landing the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal. In England, 12 B-17 bombers of the new Eighth Air Force’s 97th Bombardment Group bombed the Rouen–Sotteville railroad marshalling yards in France. While the mission was small, the aerial struggle that began that day would ultimately cost the United States more men killed and wounded by the end of the war in Europe than the Marines would lose in the Pacific War.
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may be factual but poorly written
- By Bill Mackey on 01-08-24
By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, and others
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Lions of Kandahar
- The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
- By: Major Rusty Bradley, Kevin Maurer
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packed warren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers.
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'Merica!
- By NKeene on 03-07-15
By: Major Rusty Bradley, and others
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The Air War Through German Eyes
- How the Luftwaffe Lost the Skies over the Reich
- By: Jonathan Trigg
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.
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Somewhat interesting but repetitive & misses stuff
- By B Taub on 08-24-24
By: Jonathan Trigg
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Blood, Dust and Snow
- Diaries of a Panzer Commander in Germany and on the Eastern Front
- By: Friedrich Sander, Robin Schafer - editor translator, Roger Moorhouse - foreword
- Narrated by: Stephan Goldbach
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The war on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 was the bloodiest combat theater in the bloodiest war in history. Oberleutnant Friedrich Wilhelm Sander experienced this bloodshed firsthand when serving with the 11th Panzer-Regiment. This regiment made up the core of the 6th Panzer-Division, one of Hitler's top armored formations, which was involved in most of the major campaigns on the Eastern Front; campaigns such as Operation Barbarossa and Operation Winter Storm.
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Great account of a light tank commander during WWII, BUT
- By William T. on 09-16-23
By: Friedrich Sander, and others
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To Fly and Fight
- Memoirs of a Triple Ace
- By: Clarence E. Bud Anderson
- Narrated by: Joshua Katinger
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his father's farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program.
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Fantastic!!!
- By chris johnson on 07-24-23
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The Mighty Eighth
- The Air War in Europe as Told by the Men Who Fought It
- By: Gerald Astor
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 23 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Europe has fallen. Pearl Harbor is in flames. Enter: the Eighth. In 1941 the RAF fought a desperate battle of survival against the Luftwaffe over Britain. Then, from across the Atlantic, came a new generation of American pilots, gunners, and bombardiers, a new generation of flying machines called the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang fighter.
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A Good Listen with 1 problem
- By Matthew Schuller on 08-23-19
By: Gerald Astor
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The Cactus Air Force
- Air War Over Guadalcanal
- By: Eric Hammel, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Adam Henderson
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.
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Excellent Book!
- By Eric Peterson on 09-16-22
By: Eric Hammel, and others
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Tailspin
- By: John Armbruster
- Narrated by: Brandon Pollock
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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World War II tail gunner Gene Moran fell four miles through the sky without a parachute and lived. Captured by the Germans, he survived a harrowing eighteen months as a prisoner of war, including a six-hundred-mile death march in 1945 across Central Europe. When Gene returned home, he kept those memories locked up for nearly seventy years. His nine children knew little of their dad's war story. But when John, a young history teacher, learns of Gene's amazing fall, he's desperate to learn more. Finally, Gene agrees.
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Triumph, Tragedy, History
- By Bill54494 on 12-12-22
By: John Armbruster
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Leyte Gulf
- A New History of the World's Largest Sea Battle
- By: Mark E. Stille
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Pacific War expert Mark Stille examines the key aspects of battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, with new and insightful analysis and dismantles the myths surrounding the respective actions and overall performances of the two most important commanders in the battle, and the “lost victory” of the Japanese advance into Leyte Gulf that never happened.
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Perhaps a little scholarly
- By Michael Kiehn on 11-14-24
By: Mark E. Stille
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Lucky 666
- The Impossible Mission
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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From the authors of the New York Times best-selling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest dogfight in history, and change the momentum of the war in the Pacific - but not without making the ultimate sacrifice.
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A WWII Pacific Tale
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: Bob Drury, and others
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The Few
- The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and risking their U.S. citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots in the summer of 1940—over a year before America entered the war. Flying the lethal and elegant Spitfire, they became "knights of the air" and with minimal training but plenty of guts, they dueled the skilled and fearsome pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe. By October 1940, they had helped England win the greatest air battle in the history of aviation.
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Absolutely wonderful story!!
- By MStewart on 12-12-24
By: Alex Kershaw
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Damn the Valley
- 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 2-508 PIR, 82nd Airborne in the Arghandab River Valley Afghanistan
- By: William Yeske, LTG Ben Hodges - Foreword USA (Ret.)
- Narrated by: Basil Sands, William Yeske
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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"DAMN THE VALLEY" was a phrase regularly uttered by the men that spent any amount of time in the Arghandab River Valley during the deployment of 2 Fury to Afghanistan in 2009-2010. The valley has claimed bodies from the troops of Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and more recently, the Russian Army. Operating in the valley was like nothing the men could have envisaged, they called it the "meat grinder." It was a deployment that the media didn't talk about, and the government doesn't acknowledge.
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Horrible in every way
- By Amazon Customer on 06-23-24
By: William Yeske, and others
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The Battle of Britain
- Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 26 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world, including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle.
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The battle up to The Battle of Britain
- By Chiefkent on 11-07-17
By: James Holland
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Wings of War
- The World War II Fighter Plane That Saved the Allies and the Believers Who Made It Fly
- By: David Fairbank White, Margaret Stanback White
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Wings of War is the incredible true story of the P-51 Mustang fighter and the unlikely crew of designers, engineers, test pilots, and army officers who brought it from the drafting table to the skies over World War II. This is hardly a straightforward tale of building an airplane—for years, the team was stymied by corruption within the defense industry and stonewalled by the Army Air Forces, who failed to understand the Mustang’s potential.
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Disappointed
- By David Kocol on 06-22-23
By: David Fairbank White, and others
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Sunward I've Climbed
- Book One of The Sunlit Silence Series of World War II in the Air
- By: Frank A. Mason
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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He’s tasted the thrill of war in the skies. He can’t stay grounded now. From the award-winning author of the bestselling Journeyman Chronicles of the American Revolution comes Frank A. Mason’s gripping new WWII aviation saga that blends heart-pounding combat with unforgettable characters. Trip Gibson thought he left the war behind in Spain. Now back at Georgia Tech, he’s trying to live a normal life of football games, women, and fast cars…but the headlines from Europe are getting harder to ignore. When the siren call of the skies pulls him in again, Trip risks everything to chase ...
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great when the next book?
- By Woodrow L. Wessel on 06-12-25
By: Frank A. Mason
The story of a boy who grew up, and became a man.
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An awesome listen
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Excellent!
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Outstanding Book
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We are all Damn Lucky
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Great story of Greatest Generation
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Inspiring story on the sacrifice lucky made for his country.
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lucky
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Such a great story
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must read
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