WWII Vet John "Lucky" Luckadoo - Cemetery Cenotaph for Sully

A Legendary WWII Pilot, His Fallen Best Friend, and a Gold Star Mother’s Wish

We need your assistance to provide a measure of closure for an American WWII veteran and living legend still haunted by the tragedy of war. Read on to learn what a huge impact even the smallest gift from you can have on a poignant chapter in a WWII veteran’s life.

Lucky (left) and Sully (right)

John "Lucky" Luckadoo and Leroy "Sully" Sullivan were best friends who grew up together in Chattanooga, TN. As the two boys approached college age, and with war raging in Europe and knowing that America would eventually be drawn into that war, Sully joined the Royal Canadian Air Force which was already at war with Nazi Germany. After Pearl Harbor, Lucky joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group (“The Bloody Hundredth”) of the Eighth Air Force piloting B-17 bombers. Both men were stationed in England which reunited the two best friends.

Lucky (first from the right) in front of a B-17 Flying Fortress.

Sully made a visit to Lucky’s airfield in his Spitfire where Lucky took the opportunity to take his friend up in Lucky’s B-17. Sully told Lucky he needed to visit him at his airfield where Sully could introduce Lucky to the new Hawker Typhoon fighter that Sully had just transitioned to from the Spitfire. So, at the first opportunity, Lucky flew his B-17 to Sully’s airfield.

As Lucky stood on the brakes to get the giant “truck” of a four-engine heavy bomber to stop on the short fighter airstrip, he passed the smoldering debris of a crashed fighter plane at the side of the runway. Moments later Lucky was told the devastating news that the wreckage he saw was Sully’s aircraft. Sully had died just the day before when the engine of his fighter failed during take-off, cartwheeling Sully’s plane into the ground.

Learning that Lucky was Sully's best friend, the Commanding Officer of Sully’s airfield asked Lucky to wire the news of Sully’s death to Sully’s mother. A few days later, Lucky attended Sully’s funeral and burial at a British military cemetery where Sully’s remains reside to this day.

After Lucky finished his tour of combat missions, he returned to the States and called on Mrs. Sullivan at her home in Chattanooga. Mrs. Sullivan, overwhelmed with grief after having lost her husband to wounds he suffered in WWI, and now the loss of her only son in the Second World War, turned to Lucky and stated, “I want you to return his remains to this country because he’s buried among strangers.” Lucky replied, “I’m sorry Mrs. Sullivan, but there is nothing I can do.” Lucky tried to explain that as a Major in rank he did not have the clout to bring Sully’s remains back home in the middle of a war. Mrs. Sullivan looked at Lucky and said, “You were his best friend.” From that point forward Mrs. Sullivan never spoke to Lucky again.

Nellie H. Sullivan passed away on August 31, 1959 still not having spoken a word to Lucky.

For all Lucky endured, for all Lucky survived, the loss of Sully and his inability to fulfill Mrs. Sullivan’s wish to return Sully to Chattanooga are among Lucky’s most traumatic experiences of World War II. Mrs. Sullivan’s words, “You were his best friend” still haunt Lucky today.

In service and gratitude to Lucky and on his behalf, we are symbolically granting Mrs. Sullivan’s wish to bring her son closer to home by installing a cenotaph memorial grave marker to Leroy Means “Sully” Sullivan at Mrs. Sullivan’s grave in the historic Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga, TN.

We’ve made a promise to Lucky that we will make this happen no matter what, and we invite you to be a part of that promise. Your gift, regardless of the amount, will go towards the construction and installation of a cenotaph containing a photo-etched image of Sully with a quote from Sully’s wartime diary: “If I should die think only this of me: that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever Tennessee.”

(Cenotaph design)

Lucky will dedicate Sully’s cenotaph at the cemetery in October of 2024.

Not only will your gift honor Sully Sullivan, the first Chattanooga airman to be killed in WWII, but it will help to close the circle for Lucky and lift a weight he has carried his entire life. We owe these two sons of Chattanooga, a heartbroken Gold Star mother, and their entire generation so much. We don’t have the power to bring Sully’s actual remains back home, but we can help Lucky stand at Mrs. Sullivan’s grave and tell her that he did as much as possible to fulfill her wish by placing her son’s name on her grave.

(Lucky visits Sully at the corner of the foreign field that is "Forever Tennessee", Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey, United Kingdom, 2023)

Thank you so much for your contribution towards repaying a grateful nation’s debt to Flight Officer Leroy Means “Sully” Sullivan, RCAF, his mother Mrs. Nellie H. Sullivan of Chattanooga, TN, and his best friend Maj. John H. “Lucky” Luckadoo, USAAF.

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