FreightWaves Classics salutes two Chinese American female aviators from World War II

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Organizations across the United States are paying tribute to “generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America’s history and are instrumental in its future success.” FreightWaves joins in that tribute. An earlier article profiled the U.S. Coast Guard’s Melvin Kealoha Bell. A second article profiled Elaine Chao, who served the United States in a number of roles, including U.S. Secretary of Labor and U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

With Memorial Day taking place next week, it also seems very appropriate to recognize Margaret “Maggie” Gee and Hazel Ying Lee, members of the “Greatest Generation” and authentic heroes that all Americans should honor.

Background

Thanks in large part to the efforts of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater (who served as a ferry pilot during World War II), the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were finally militarized in 1977, an act that made official the veteran status of those women who had flown aircraft in support of the United States during World War II. That led the U.S Air Force (USAF) to officially recognize the active military status of the WASP during the war and it then issued honorable discharges to those aviators in May 1979.

The actions by Congress and the USAF made surviving WASP members eligible for long-denied benefits such as access to veterans hospitals, homes loans from the government, and burial in military cemeteries. Perhaps more importantly, the role of these women in the war effort was formally acknowledged.

“Rosie the Riveter and her colleagues got their share of glory during World War II,” reported the Associated Press. “But a band of fliers had to wait 34 years for official recognition.”

This was followed in 2009, when President Barrack Obama signed legislation awarding each member of the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal on July 1, 2009.

Today’s FreightWaves Classics article profiles two WASP aviators with Chinese heritage.

Maggie Gee’s early life

One of those women pilots who had pushed for official recognition was Margaret “Maggie” Gee (1923-2013). She was one of the two Chinese-Americans to serve as WASP fliers. With other WASP members, Gee agreed on the need to change the official status of their wartime service at a 1972 reunion of surviving WASPs. She and others lobbied for several years for that change in status. When the USAF recognized their active military status, Gee and hundreds of fellow WASPs celebrated; they wore their old uniforms and marched in a parade at their former training camp – Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.

Born Gee Mei Gue in August 1923 in Berkeley, California, she was one of six children. Her father, a second-generation Chinese American, died when she was six. Like many other Chinese American children, she went by her American name, Margaret (or more often “Maggie”), for much of her life. 

When she was growing up, she enjoyed her family’s weekend trips to the Oakland airport. Gee would look for aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, whom she idolized. After graduating from high school in 1941, she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley to study physics. However, when the United States entered World War II her plans changed.

World War II

Gee left college to work in ship production at Mare Island Naval Shipyard with her mother and thousands of others. However, she sought to be a pilot, like her childhood idol, Amelia Earhart. Gee saved money from her shipyard job for flying lessons. 

After saving enough, Gee moved to Minden, Nevada, to learn to fly. She earned her pilot’s license within six months, then applied immediately for the WASP training program. The WASP program was created in 1943 when U.S. Army officials realized they needed more domestic pilots to allow Army Air Forces pilots to deploy for service in either the European or Pacific theaters of war. The WASP program offered female pilots a rare opportunity to serve their country. 

Despite the need for their services, WASPs faced gender discrimination from their male peers and commanders. It was decided that enlisting women in the military was too controversial. Therefore, WASP members were classified as civilians (although they were uniformed, trained and followed the regulations of members of the Army Air Forces). Gee was one of only 8% of those who applied for the WASP to be accepted.

Despite many challenges, Gee was successful as a member of the WASP. As noted above, she trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, and graduated with her silver wings on November 8, 1944. Later, Gee reflected on her time as a WASP. “I consider myself very fortunate; that I could do something that I really enjoyed. I felt I was doing something for my country…” 

The WASP program ended in December 1944, but in her short time as a WASP, Gee accomplished a great deal. She transported aircraft from assembly factories to “airbases to prepare them for war-front delivery, copiloted fighter planes in mock air fights, and trained male pilots at the Las Vegas gunnery school.” 

Throughout the remainder of her life, Gee drew strength and inspiration from her time as a WASP pilot. “I learned from the flying experience that if there’s something you really want to do, pursue it,” she asserted. “I wouldn’t listen to others that said ‘you can’t do it.’ I would consider it a bigger challenge.”

Post-war success

Having succeeded once in a male-dominated field, Gee returned to the University of California, Berkeley to succeed in another. She re-enrolled to earn a degree in physics at a time when women were very underrepresented in STEM fields. Gee earned a Bachelor of Science degree, and then also completed a Master of Science in physics. 

She began working in Berkeley’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1958. Gee researched weapons systems that were developed and deployed during the Cold War. She worked or consulted on Livermore’s nuclear and magnetic fusion programs for the remainder of her career. In addition, she met Warren Heckrotte, her life partner of almost 50 years, while working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Gee also followed in her mother’s footsteps in regard to community involvement. She was very involved in Democratic Party activities, beginning during the Truman administration. Gee volunteered to run voter registration drives and fundraisers. She served as a member of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, the California State Democratic Party Executive Board, and the Asian Pacific Islander Democratic Caucus. She was a member of the 1992 Democratic Party Platform Committee.

In 2003, she said, “I’m very optimistic about the world and people… it will be alright…You can make changes. I think just one small person can make a little bit of change…” In 2010, she was one of the few surviving WASPs to be presented a Congressional Gold Medal from President Obama. In 2013, after a life of accomplishments, Gee died at the age of 89. 

Hazel Ying Lee’s early life

Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1912, Hazel Ying Lee’s parents were Chinese immigrants who raised eight children. Although there was notable anti-Chinese sentiment in Portland during her youth, Lee had a good childhood, and enjoyed playing cards with friends and family. Described as vibrant and funny, Lee was adventuresome and athletic, playing handball, and running and swimming extensively. 

After graduating from high school, Lee took a job as an elevator operator at a Portland department store. But the job was simply a way to earn money for flying – a passion she had recently developed. 

Lee rode in an airplane during an air show in 1931. Although only 19, she wanted to be a pilot. She joined the Chinese Flying Club of Portland, a flying program supported by the Portland Chinese Benevolent Society. Lee also took flight lessons from renowned aviator Al Greenwood. In October 1932, she became one of the first Chinese American women to receive a pilot’s license. “It so happened that Hazel got her pilot’s license right after the passing of our father,” recalled her sister Frances Tong nearly 70 years later. “If dad had still been there, I don’t think she would have been able to get it.” Tong added, “But she knew that’s what she wanted to do.”

Service in China

Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and began military operations that expanded throughout China and continued for the remainder of World War II. The Chinese military needed pilots; many Chinese Americans and Chinese citizens in the United States went to China to fly against the Japanese. 

Lee sought to use her aviation skills in her ancestral homeland. She joined a squadron of volunteers training in Portland. During the training, she met Clifford Yin Cheung Louie. The two made their way to northern China to help fight the Japanese forces; however, Lee was only allowed to fly commercial aircraft, while Louie joined the Republic of China Air Force. 

Lee primarily “flew a desk” in Guangzhou because of her gender. When Japanese forces bombed the city in 1937, she, her mother and one of her sisters (who had also journeyed to China to support the war effort against the Japanese) traveled to Hong Kong, where they were war refugees. Lee returned to the United States in 1938; she began working for an organization in New York that was sending armaments to China.

Service on behalf of the U.S. in World War II

In September 1942, Lee learned about the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and applied for it. She was accepted into the WFTD (training class 43-W-4), receiving instruction on how to fly a variety of fighter planes. Lee completed her training in 1943; shortly thereafter, WFTD became part of the WASP. Her service predated that of Maggie Gee. At the time, Lee was already in her early thirties, so she was older than many of her fellow pilots (WASP accepted women as young as 18). 

Whether it was her age or her flying abilities or both, Lee became a leader in her training class. She was well-liked by her fellow WASP members, who recalled her as fast-talking and often hilarious. Lee taught them about Chinese culture, and often went with the other pilots to Chinese restaurants, where she ordered food in Chinese. Lee also wrote their names or nicknames in Chinese characters with lipstick on the tail of the airplanes they flew.

By the time Lee’s training class began, WASP were being trained at Avenger Field. During training at Sweetwater, Lee married Louie, who had been promoted to a major in the Chinese air force and was in the United States recovering from an injury. 

After graduating from her training, Lee was stationed in Michigan at Romulus Army Air Base. She was assigned to the Air Transport Command’s 3rd Ferrying Squadron. From Michigan, she flew ferrying missions and administrative flights in several types of airplanes, including the large C-47 transport aircraft (the military version of the DC-3).

As with other efforts throughout her life, Lee made the most of her time as the first Chinese American female to take to the skies as a pilot in a support role for the U.S. military. “It was fly, fly, fly,” according to Sylvia Clayton, a fellow WASP member and one of Lee’s friends. “It was an opportunity to fly, and it was something that we felt was helping the war cause.”

Lee was a talented pilot; she was sent to Pursuit School in Brownsville, Texas, in September 1944. There, she was one of just over 130 WASP who trained to fly fighters such as the P-51 Mustang and P-63 Kingcobra. Unfortunately for Lee and all WASPs, a decision was made abruptly to disband the WASP, effective December 20, 1944. 

According to Lee’s sister, when Lee learned that the WASP would be disbanded, she began to look for other flying opportunities, and had inquired about flying in the China-Burma-India theater. By November 1944, many of the WASP pilots were exhausted from the long hours and grueling flights they had been making, as well as frustrated by the impending end of the organization. In addition, Lee’s husband had returned to action in China and she had not heard from him in over six months.

The final flight and aftermath

Lee was ordered to pick up a new P-63 Kingcobra from the Bell Aircraft factory in Niagara Falls, New York, and fly it to Great Falls, Montana. Great Falls was a major staging site for aircraft being sent to the Soviet air force, and after weather delays, Lee was making an approach to land on November 23 when a horrible accident occurred. Another group of P-63s, flown by other members of WASP and U.S. Army Air Forces pilots, was also landing. One of those pilots, Jeff Russell, had been flying an airplane without a working radio for several days. 

As Lee began her approach to the runway, Russell was above her, also attempting to land. In the control tower, someone noticed the two aircraft too close to each other and yelled, “pull up,” not remembering which pilot did not have a radio. Lee heard the order, Russell could not. She pulled her aircraft up, and hit Russell’s plane. Both airplanes crashed and burst into flames. Pilots on the ground were able to pull Russell out. Lee was trapped in her burning Kingcobra. Ground crew pulled her from the airplane, but her burns were too severe. Hazel Ying Lee died on November 25, 1944. At the age of 32, she was the 38th and last WASP to die in the line of duty.

Three days after learning of Lee’s death, her family received word that her brother Victor was killed in action in France. Because WASP pilots were civilians, the Lee family had to pay for all transportation and funeral expenses for Hazel. 

Decades later, the Los Angeles Times wrote about Hazel Ying Lee, the first Chinese American woman to fly in support of U.S. military efforts. The 2003 article focused on a 1944 letter from her to one of her still-surviving relatives.

“Frances Tong isn’t sure why she kept the letter from her older sister all these years,” reported the article. “In this letter, now brown with age, a young and fearless Hazel Ying Lee asks about family members and talks about the dangers of her job ferrying fighter planes to North American airfields during World War II.”

The letter was the last one ever written by Lee. “It seemed as if everyone she met was a friend,” noted Clayton. “She didn’t think of herself as a trendsetter.” But she definitely was, and so was Maggie Gee.

Source: freightwaves - FreightWaves Classics salutes two Chinese American female aviators from World War II
Editor: Scott Mall