During the Second World War, a b-17 tailgunner had a one-in-four chance of survival during his standard twenty-five-mission tour. Valor, Guts, and Luck is the story of Staff Sergeant Lowell "Slats" Slayton (1923-2013), who beat those odds.

An underprivileged kid from Fargo, North Dakota, Slayton was a high school senior the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Drawn to the glamour of the "wild blue yonder" made famous by newsreels, he joined the Army Air Force. Eventually he found himself on an unlucky thirteenth mission to the main fw-190 fighter-aircraft plant in...