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Samuel France Showalter

Showalter was a co-pilot of the bomber that crashed into the Spaarndam neighbourhood, of which Anne Frank wrote about in her diary.

Person

  • Samuel France Showalter

Samuel Showalter (1919-2004) was a co-pilot of the bomber that crashed into the Spaardam neighbourhood on 22 March 1944.[1] The aircraft was hit over bombing raid over Berlin. Pilot Edward Welling Stull was able to keep the aircraft in the air until he made it to Amsterdam. Showalter ejected from the aircraft above Amsterdam-Noord, landed on a roof in Bremstraat and broke an ankle. A German soldier fired shots at him during his arrest. He was the last one to jump out of the plane just before the crash[2]

Anne Frank writes that German soldiers fired at the pilots, filling the Amsterdam citizens with anger.[3] Fifty years later to the date, Showalter paid another visit to Bremstraat.[2] A monument on Westzaanstraat in Amsterdam commemorates the civilian victims of the Boeing B-17-G Flying Fortress crash on 22 March 1944.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Anne refers to him as: the crew who had jumped out. Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 23 March 1944, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.
  2. a, b Emiel Ros, Bommenwerper op Spaarndammerbuurt 1944. Ros heeft zijn onderzoek naar deze vliegtuigcrash op 20 maart 2014 mondeling toegelicht.
  3. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version B, 23 March 1944, in: The Collected Workds.
  4. ^ Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei: Amsterdam, monument aan de Westzaanstraat.