William C. Lee

Lee was born in Dunn, North Carolina, one of the seven children of Eldridge Lee and his wife Emma. His father was a merchant.[3] Lee attended Wake Forest College and North Carolina State College. He participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, graduated from NC State, being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Infantry Branch of the United States Army in 1917, after the American entry into World War I. Lee served in World War I with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), which was commanded by General John J. Pershing, on the Western Front. During the war, he served as a platoon and company commander in the 81st Division.[4]

He stayed in the Army during the interwar period and, soon after the war ended, and taking an interest in armored warfare, he attended the tank warfare training schools in Fort Meade, Maryland, and at Versailles, France. In the 1930s, he attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School and was promoted to major soon after. On a tour of Europe, he observed the revolutionary new German airborne forces, a concept that he believed the U.S. Army should adopt. He returned to the United States, where he was ordered to the Office of the Chief of Infantry at Washington, D.C. On August 18, 1940, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.[5]

By the time the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Lee, promoted to the temporary rank of colonel on December 24,[5] was a proponent of airborne warfare. Lee had observed smokejumper training methods within the past year to lay a template for training.[6] President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored the concept, and Lee was authorized to form the first paratroop platoon, which was commanded by William T. Ryder. This was followed by the Provisional Parachute Group, and finally the U.S. Army Airborne Command, which he took command of on March 21, 1942, which was followed shortly afterwards by a temporary promotion to brigadier general on April 19.[5] Lee was the first commander of the U.S. Army's jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. His Army Distinguished Service Medal was awarded, "for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War II."[1]

In August 1942, Lee, promoted on August 9 to the two-star rank of major general,[5] became the first Commanding General (CG) of the newly formed 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division, based at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. He told his men:

The 101st has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny.[7]

He trained the 101st in the United States from its creation until being sent to England in September 1943 to prepare for the Allied invasion of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord.

Lee helped plan the American airborne landings in Normandy and trained to jump with his men. On February 5, 1944, a damp, wet and cloudy day, Lee was on his way to observe a training exercise by the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph "Bud" Harper. Lee suddenly claimed to Harper, "Bud, I can't go any farther, I have a terrible pain in my chest." Harper managed to secure the services of a truck nearby and Lee was evacuated to the 302nd Field Hospital, where doctors diagnosed a serious heart attack. Although the Army wanted to send him back to the United States for better treatment, Lee refused, believing, in vain, that he might return to the 101st, where Lieutenant General Omar Bradley had promised to hold his command.[8]

Lee remained in hospital until March, when he had a second heart attack and was returned to the United States, where he would be retired from the Army for reasons of ill health in late 1944.[5][8]

There was a question of who would command the 101st. Command initially fell to Brigadier General Don Pratt (who was later killed in Normandy), the assistant division commander, and he assumed he would command the division permanently, but he does not appear to have been seriously considered by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. The division's artillery commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, was another possibility. But Eisenhower selected Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery, with combat experience in Sicily and Italy under his belt, to lead the 101st into battle.[7]

In June 1918, he married Dava Johnson, who traveled with him throughout his military career.

Lee died at his home in Dunn, North Carolina in 1948.

The General William C. Lee Airborne Museum is located in Dunn, in his former home.[9]

On October 11, 2004 the U.S. Senate passed a bill to rename the Dunn Post Office, the "General William Carey Lee Post Office."

Lee Residence Hall, one of the largest dormitories at North Carolina State University, is named after William C. Lee.

The Gen. William C. Lee House at Dunn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.[10]

[NOTE: The "Bill Lee Freeway" in Charlotte, North Carolina, a section of Interstate 77 is named for William States Lee III (1929–1996), president and CEO of Duke Power and no known relation to the general.]

• Autry, Jerry. Assisted by Kathryn Autry. General William C. Lee: Father of the Airborne : Just Plain Bill. San Francisco: Airborne Press, 1995. ISBN 0-934145-24-5
• "William C. Lee House". Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary. National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
• "William C. Lee, "Father of the Airborne"" (PDF). North Carolina Museum of History, Office of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-30. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
• Yockelson, Mitchell (2020). The Paratrooper Generals: Matthew Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, and the American Airborne from D-Day through Normandy. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780811768511.

• "General William C. Lee, "Father of the Airborne"". 101ST Airborne Division. Archived from the original on 2008-06-12. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
• General William C. Lee Airborne Museum Website
• William C. Lee at Find a Grave Website
• Generals of World War II