Хазел Йинг Ли: Америкалық әуеші, Қытай-американдық пилот

American aviator

Hazel Ying Lee (; August 24, 1912 – November 25, 1944) was an American pilot who flew for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II.

Lee was born in Portland, Oregon. Her parents were Yuet Lee and Ssiu Lan Wong, first generation Chinese Americans who had immigrated to Portland from Taishan, Guangdong. The family owned a Chinese restaurant in Old Town Chinatown. Lee's mother devoted her energy to raising eight children and helping with the family business. 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 Despite opposition from her mother, who saw no opportunity in the endeavor, Lee knew she "had to fly."

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. 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. She was the first Chinese American woman to fly for the United States military. Although flying under military command, the women pilots of the WASP were classified as civilians and were paid through the civil service. No military benefits were offered and when WASP pilots died in the line of duty, no military funerals were allowed. The WASPs were often assigned the least desirable missions, such as winter trips in open cockpit airplanes. Commanding officers were initially reluctant to give women any flying deliveries. It took an order from the head of the Air Transport Command to improve the situation. Upon graduation, Lee was assigned to the Third Ferrying Group at Romulus, Michigan. Their assignment was critical to the war effort. They delivered aircraft, which were being manufactured in large numbers in converted automobile factories, to points of embarkation, where they would then be shipped to the European and Pacific War fronts. In a letter to her sister, Lee described Romulus as "a 7 day workweek, with little time off." She was a favorite with her fellow pilots, known for her sense of humor and being mischievous. Lee often used her lipstick to inscribe Chinese characters on the tail of her plane and the planes of her fellow pilots. Fellow WASP pilot Sylvia Dahmes Clayton recalled: "Hazel provided me with an opportunity to learn about a different culture at a time when I did not know anything else. She expanded my world and my outlook on life." 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. 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. The cemetery refused to allow the family to bury Hazel and Victor in the chosen spot, citing cemetery policy that did not allow Asians to be buried "in the White section." 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 2004, Hazel Ying Lee was inducted into Oregon's Aviation Hall of Honor, a fraternity of native Oregonians who made historic contributions to aviation.