Born in Camden, Arkansas, Lee Bower entered service in early 1942, enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces. By fall of 1944, he was stationed at an airfield at Charleroi, Belgium as a P-38 pilot in the 485^th Fighter Squadron, 370^th Bombardment Group. Shot down over western Germany on January 26, 1945, and captured, Lee was sent first to Oflag 73 in Nuremberg, then to Stalag 7A in Moosburg. He was liberated there near the end of the war. Bower was discharged as a captain at Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1945. After the war he managed an industrial supply firm, and designed the engineering for sawmills and plywood plants.