Hazel Ying Lee

Lee has since been remembered for her legacy of fighting toward equality and inclusion, her bravery, and record of service. In 2010, PBS aired a documentary about Lee entitled, A Brief Flight: Hazel Ying Lee and The Women Who Flew Pursuit.

In 2004, Hazel Ying Lee was inducted into Oregon's Aviation Hall of Honor, a fraternity of native Oregonians who made historic contributions to aviation.

For over three decades after the war, members of the WASP and their supporters attempted to secure military status for the women pilots. In March 1977, following United States Congressional approval of Public Law 95-202, the efforts of the Women Airforce Service pilots were finally recognized, and military status was finally granted. Thirty-eight WASP pilots died while in service during the years of World War II, and Lee was the last to die during the program. In 2010, she and all other WASP pilots, whether living, deceased, or killed during the war, received the Congressional Gold Medal.

In September 1944, Lee was sent to Pursuit School at Brownsville, Texas for intensive training. She was part of Class 44-18 Flight B and went on to be among the 134 women pilots who flew "Pursuit," that is faster, high powered fighters such as the P-63 Kingcobra, P-51 Mustang and P-39 Airacobra. Lee's favorite aircraft was the Mustang. Lee and these others were the first women to pilot fighter aircraft for the United States military.

On November 10, 1944, Lee received orders to go to the Bell Aircraft factory at Niagara Falls, New York, where she was to fly a P-63 Kingcobra aircraft to Great Falls, Montana. During the war Lee and the other Pursuit pilots delivered over 5,000 fighters to Great Falls, which was a link in supplying Soviet allies fighting the Nazi forces with planes under the Lend-Lease program. From there, male pilots flew the fighters on to Alaska, where Soviet pilots waited to fly the planes to their home bases.

Bad weather delayed the mission at Fargo, North Dakota and on the morning of November 23, the weather cleared, allowing Lee to leave Fargo. Shortly after 2 p.m., Lee was cleared to land in Great Falls with a large number of P-63's approaching the airport at the same time. There was confusion on the part of the control tower, resulting in Lee's plane and another P-63 colliding. The aircraft were engulfed in flames and Lee was pulled from the burning wreckage of her airplane with her flight jacket still smoldering. Two days later, on November 25, 1944, Lee died from the severe burns she received in the accident.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America was drawn into World War II. As the war claimed the time and lives of American pilots, it became clear that there were not enough male pilots to sustain the war effort at home. With the ambivalent support of United States Army Air Force Commander Henry "Hap" Arnold, the Women Airforce Service Pilots or "WASP," was created in 1943, under the command of famed aviator Jacqueline Cochran.

Experienced women pilots like Lee were eager to join the WASP and responded to interview requests by Cochran. Members of the WASP reported to Avenger Field, in Sweetwater, Texas for an arduous six-month training program. Lee was accepted into the 4th class, 43 W 4. She was the first Chinese-American woman to fly for the United States military. During Lee's training, it was reported that she fell from the aircraft she was riding in when the instructor made an unexpected loop. Her seat belt wasn't fastened correctly, at the time, and she saved herself by using her parachute. Lee landed in a field and walked back to the base dragging the parachute behind her.

In 1937, the Japanese forces invaded China. Lee remained in the country despite the war and was in Canton when hundreds of civilians were killed in Japanese air attacks. While bombs fell all around them, friends recall Lee's calm effort to find shelter for friends, neighbors and family, which allowed them all to survive the bombing attacks. In 1938, following another unsuccessful effort to aid the Air Force as a pilot, Lee, a non-citizen, knew she had to return to the United States, and did so after escaping the country to Hong Kong. In New York City, Lee got job as a buyer of war materials for besieged China.

Prior to World War II, in response to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1933, Lee and several other Chinese Americans journeyed there with the goal of aiding the Chinese Air Force. Despite the great need for pilots at the time, the Republic of China Air Force would not accept a woman pilot. Because she was a woman, Lee was forced to take a desk job, flying only occasionally for a commercial Chinese company. Frustrated, Lee instead settled in Canton and spent the next few years flying for a private airline. At the time Lee was one of a very small number of women pilots in China.

In 1932, Lee took her first airplane ride with a friend at an air show and was determined to learn to fly. She joined the Chinese Flying Club of Portland and took flying lessons with famed aviator Al Greenwood. Despite opposition from her mother, who saw no opportunity in the endeavor, Lee knew she "had to fly." In discussing Hazel's love of flying her sister Frances recalled: "It was the thought of doing something she loved. She enjoyed the danger and doing something that was new to Chinese girls."

In October 1932, Lee became one of the first Chinese-American women to earn a pilot's license. Author Judy Yung wrote of Lee and the other Chinese-American women pilots of that time, "Although few in number, these first Chinese American aviators, in their attempt to participate in a daring sport, broke the stereotype of the passive Chinese woman and demonstrated the ability of Chinese American women to compete in a male-dominated field."

Despite the widespread anti-Chinese bias of her time, Lee led a full and active life. She was involved in athletics such as swimming and handball, loved to play cards, and in her teenage years, learned how to drive. Following graduation from Commerce High School in 1929, Lee found a job as an elevator operator at Liebes Department Store in downtown Portland. It was one of the few jobs that a Chinese-American woman could hold during this time.

Hazel Ying Lee (Chinese: 李月英; Jyutping: lei5 jyut6 jing1; pinyin: Lǐ Yuèyīng; August 24, 1912 – November 25, 1944) was an American pilot who flew for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II.