“Chinese American WASP pilot”Hazel Ah Ying Lee(1912-1944)Hazel, affectionately called “Ah Ying”, was a Chinese American WASP pilot. Through the sponsorship of the Chinese Benevolent Society she began flying lessons in Portland at the age of twenty. In 1933 Ah Ying traveled to China with 11 men and women to join the Chinese Air Force. Despite her ability, women were not permitted to fly in the Chinese Air Force and she instead did commercial flying for a private Chinese airline. During Ah Ying’s time in China she was commissioned as second lieutenant in the aeronautics division at Kwansgi, China. In 1937 the Sino-Japanese war broke out. Ah Ying strongly believed in the importance of strengthening the Chinese Air Force and opened a flight school in Canton, China for her half-brothers and sisters. In 1938 Ah Ying was in Canton when the Japanese bombed the city. At the age of 26, Ah Ying returned to the U.S. to work for the Chinese Government with the Universal Trading Agency. In 1943, at the age of 31, Ah Ying enrolled in Jacqueline Cochran’s Women’s Flying Training Detachment, class 1943-W-4, and was trained in Sweetwater, Texas. According to a story Ah Ying frequently told, while training in Sweetwater she had a forced landing. She landed in a farmer’s field and the farmer ran out of his house with a pitch fork and held her up thinking there was a Japanese invasion. The farmer’s son came out to see what the commotion was and she finally was able to convince the farmer to call the base and she was let go. On November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day in 1943, Hazel Ah Ying Lee was involved in a deadly crash with another plane at East Base, Great Falls, Montana. She was en route deliveringP-63's for the Russian Lend Lease account. Ten other P-63's were in the same traffic pattern for the same type of delivery. Weather conditions were bad and there was radio transmission problems between the terminal and some of the P-63's. Blinded from each other, Ah Ying and a male pilot were flying one atop the other preparing to land. It is speculated that the terminal was attempting to tell the male pilot, who had a broken radio, to pull up and circle around. Instead, Ah Ying heard the notice and assumed the terminal was communicating with her and as a result she pulled up into the other P-63. Both planes landed in a fiery ball and eyewitnesses to the crash rushed to the runway to rescue the pilots. The male pilot survived with a few minor injuries and burns, but Ah Ying sustained major burns and died as a result November 25th, 1944.
