John H. Luckadoo, the last surviving pilot from the storied 100th Bombardment Group, a war-battered unit of B-17 heavy bombers that flew missions deep over German-held territory during World War II, died on Sept. 1 in Dallas. He was 103.
His daughter, Elaine Abbott, said the death, in a hospice facility, was from congestive heart failure.
Mr. Luckadoo, known as Lucky, was just 19 when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the United States to enter World War II.
He was assigned to fly B-17s, the military’s new long-range heavy bombers, which were designed to travel from southeast Britain into Nazi-occupied Europe to attack submarine pens, factories, rail yards and, eventually, German cities.
After more than a year of training, he flew his first mission in June 1943. By then his unit, a part of the Eighth Air Force, had earned the nickname “the Bloody 100th” because, even in a campaign that saw extensive losses of planes and crews, it stood out for its deadly turnover: During its 306 missions, the unit lost 757 men and 229 planes.
“Prior to being sent over, our commander called us together and he said, ‘Now I want you to look to your right and you look to your left and look ahead and look behind you, and only one of you is gonna come home,’” he recalled in January to News Channel 9 in Chattanooga, Tenn., his hometown.
At the time, according to historians, the Army Air Forces thought B-17s, bristling with 12 .50-caliber machine guns and flying in tight formation, did not need fighter escorts to ward off German defenders. In any case, their missions over Germany were at first beyond the reach of U.S. fighter escorts.
German fighter pilots proved exceptionally good at piercing the B-17s’ defenses, especially because the American planners insisted on daytime assaults for more precise targeting.
“You were very impressed very quickly that they not only knew what they were doing, but they did it well — and they were out to kill you,” Mr. Luckadoo said in an interview for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. “You had to be pretty much immune to the fact that you were in the big leagues — you were being confronted by very experienced, and very well equipped and very well trained opposition.”
Mr. Luckadoo’s most harrowing mission came on Oct. 8, 1943, as U.S. forces launched a series of massive air raids over the German port city of Bremen. By then, the life expectancy of a B-17 pilot like Mr. Luckadoo was 11 missions — a virtual death sentence for the officers, who were required to fly 25 missions during their tour.
“Some later described the flak that day as being so thick we could have put down our wheels and taxied on it!” he said in an interview for the 100th Bombardment Group’s historical association.
At one point Mr. Luckadoo looked up to see a flight of German Fw-190 fighters headed straight for them. The lead plane, either by accident or because the pilot was shot, slammed straight into the bomber directly above Mr. Luckadoo’s. Both aircraft exploded, nearly taking down his B-17 with it.
By the time they dropped their payloads, Mr. Luckadoo’s formation had lost 12 of its 18 bombers. An engine had been shot out, and a hole had been punched into a window near his seat. Freezing air poured in. Even with heated sheepskin boots, Mr. Luckadoo’s foot froze to a control pedal.
Mr. Luckadoo finished his tour four months later, with his 25th mission. By then, the introduction of the P-51 Mustang long-range escort fighter had made bombing missions safer. But the toll was immense: Only three other pilots of the original 40 in Mr. Luckadoo’s training class reached their 25th flight.
John Hampton Luckadoo was born on March 16, 1922, in Chattanooga. His father, Levy, was a stockbroker, and his mother, Rowena (Sauls) Luckadoo, managed the home.
When World War II began in Europe, Lucky was a student at the University of Chattanooga (now the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga). He and his friend Leroy Sullivan enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, but Lucky’s father forbade him to go. Instead, he waited until December 1941, when the United States entered the war, to enlist.
Later, in England, he reconnected with Mr. Sullivan, who flew single-seat Hurricane fighter planes for the Royal Air Force. When Mr. Luckadoo arrived one day at the R.A.F. base for a visit, he saw the wreckage of a plane burning on the runway. He soon found out Mr. Sullivan had died in the crash, the result of a mechanical error in flight.
After finishing his missions, Mr. Luckadoo served as an operations officer for the Eighth Air Force, then returned to the United States for additional training. The war against Germany was coming to an end, but experienced pilots were needed for what many expected would be a cataclysmic invasion of Japan (the mission was averted when Japan surrendered).
Mr. Luckadoo resigned his commission in 1946, leaving with the rank of major. His honors included the Distinguished Flying Cross, four awards of the Air Medal and the French Legion of Honor.
He studied business at the University of Denver, graduated in 1950 and went into commercial real estate. He developed Colorado’s first air-conditioned mall and later expanded his business into Texas and other states.
While in training in Texas, he met Barbara Howell, and they married in 1946. Mrs. Luckadoo died in 2017. Along with their daughter, Mr. Luckadoo is survived by two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
For decades, Mr. Luckadoo rarely spoke about his time in the war, especially in public. It was only after he began shifting to retirement that he began to talk about his experiences openly — his wife told him he had a duty to talk about the horrors of war and to commemorate fellow airmen who died in combat.
The story of the Bloody 100th is recounted in the 2006 book “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany,” by Donald L. Miller, which was the basis for the 2024 series on Apple TV+.
Mr. Luckadoo worked as a lead consultant on the series, and its production brought him further into the public spotlight, with a steady stream of speaking events and interviews.
He was also the subject of “Damn Lucky: One Man’s Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History” (2022), an account of his 25 missions by Kevin Maurer.
Mr. Luckadoo framed his talks around the sheer terror that comes with knowing that making it through combat is often as much a matter of luck as it is training or courage.
“I’m not a hero,” he liked to say. “I’m a survivor.”
Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.
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