William C Lee

Early life and military career

Lee was born in Dunn, North Carolina, one of the seven children of Eldridge Lee and his wife Emma. His father was a merchant. 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 Force (AEF), which was commanded by General John J. Pershing, on the Western Front. During the war he served as both a platoon and company commander.

Between the wars

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 first observed the revolutionary new German airborne forces which 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..

World War II

By the time the United States entered World War II, in December 1941, Lee was a proponent of airborne warfare. 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. Lee was the first commander of the U.S. Army's jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. He received the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his early leadership in the creation of the airborne forces.

In August 1942, Lee, promoted to the two-star rank of major general, 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." 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.

Lee helped plan the American airborne landings in Normandy, and trained to jump with his men. However, he was ordered to the United States several months before the invasion, having suffered either a heart attack or a stroke. He was replaced in command of the 101st by Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, who had previously commanded the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery, who went on to command the 101st until the end of the war.

Postwar

William Lee retired from the U.S. Army for reasons of ill health in late 1944. He died at his home in Dunn, North Carolina four years later.

Personal life

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

Honors

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

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.

[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.]