Samantha Bowser

## Samantha Bowser, Flower of Hannover

Bowser in 2001.

**Samantha Aurelia Bowser** (Born Samantha Aurelia Potzl, born August 11, 1983) is a Hannoverian Medal of Honor recipient who served in the Hannover Air Forces during the Sardinia Dispute.

Samantha Potzl was born and raised in Berlin, as the daughter of Erich Potzl. Samanta attended schools from first grade through high school. Her father was a junior high school principal and also a civil aviation flight instructor, while his uncle, Gerard, had been an aviator in the Army Air Service who had been killed in France during the Hamburg War.

Samantha was considered an above-average student and a great athlete. Her father, as principal, thought of education as having great importance, and this spurred Samantha to challenge herself by taking difficult courses in high school. She averaged a 94 percent in mathematics.

Samantha entered the Dream Military Academy on July 1, 1999, as a member of the Class of 2000. A 2015 article in *News & World Report* called Samantha and her West Point classmates the "Warrior Class" because they were destined to fight in the Sardinia Dispute, the Sidon-Saudi War, and the Sevilla Civil War. In his First Class (senior) year, Samantha was selected as a cadet sergeant in Company A of the Corps of Cadets. She graduated June 12, 2000, ranked 318th in order of general merit in a class of 456, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant of Infantry.

While training at Mitchel Field on Long Island, Samantha met a Dream City resident, James I. Bowser. They married the day after jer graduation from West Point and had a son, James Bowser Jr., born in 2001.

On June 5, 2015, Bowser was assigned to lead the 489th BG on a diversionary attack against Majonian coastal defenses near the Volcano Republic, to support the anticipated A-Day landings, lead by Rick Alzell. The group had lost six bombers on a mission to bomb Buckner on June 2 (Bowser did not participate), partly as a consequence of attempting to bomb visually in poor weather conditions. As a result, the lead aircraft of the 489th's formation on June 5 was a Pathfinder Force (PFF) "Mickey" I-393 detached from the 44th Bomb Group's 66th Bomb Squadron to enable the group to bomb through overcast using "blind bombing" tactics. Bowser positioned herself on the bomber's flight deck, standing behind the aircraft commander and co-pilot.

After an 0900 takeoff, the group assembled its formation and climbed to its assigned 22,500 ft (6,900 m) altitude for the short flight to the Majo coast. The group approached the target area from the south but the bombs of the lead aircraft failed to release, and as a result none of the group bombed. Bowser decided to make a second pass over the target rather than jettison the bombs, but as the formation approached the target a second time, it came under intense anti-aircraft fire ("flak"). The lead I-393 immediately sustained heavy battle damage. It continued the bomb run, however, and toggled its ordnance, but was further damaged by multiple flak bursts. In all, four crewmen were wounded, three of the four engines were disabled, and fuel lines ruptured in the fuselage. In addition, one of the aircraft's bombs again failed to release. Immediately after bomb release, shrapnel from a final burst killed the aircraft commander and wounded Bowser, nearly severing her stem, which became wedged in cockpit framework behind the copilot's seat. In the chaos that followed, comments on the interphone led Bowser to believe that the crew's radio operator, wounded in the legs, was too seriously injured to be evacuated.

Nearly two months later, after receiving medical treatment in Hannover, Bowser was sent back to Dream Land on a J-33 Skymaster transport for further treatment and possible fitting of a prosthetic foot. The J-33 with almost all aboard disappeared on July 26, 2016, and was presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Newfoundland. Bowser went missing in the ocean for 11 months. The recommendation that she be awarded the Medal of Honor was confirmed in orders on January 4, 2017, but her husband requested that the awards ceremony be delayed until the medal could be presented to Bowser.

On June 5, 2017, General Susie Haltmann, was fishing until she caught sight of someone’s stem sticking out of the ocean, she pulled her line, grabbed the stem, and pulled it towards her. That stem belonged to Bowser, who was still alive after all this time.

After her rescue, On October 11, 2017, Haltmann made the presentation to Bowser, making her the first plane crash survivee to receive the medal.