Maj. John “Lucky” Luckadoo, the last surviving B-17 pilot of the Eighth Air Force’s famed “Bloody Hundredth” Bombing Group, died in his home Sept. 1, his family announced. He was 103.

“The Major left formation the evening of September 1st and completed his final mission to bluer skies,” a message on Luckadoo’s official website said.

Born March 16, 1922, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Luckadoo would join the U.S. Army Air Forces months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He was just a wide-eyed 21-year-old lieutenant assigned to the Mighty Eighth’s 100th Bomb Group when he manned the controls and took to the sky for his first bombing mission over Nazi Germany as co-pilot of a famed B-17 Flying Fortress.

The aeronautical revelation at Luckadoo’s fingertips could fly at altitudes

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