William C. Lee
 |
Major General William C. Lee |
General
William "Bill" Carey Lee (
March 12,
1895 â€"
June 25,
1948) was an
American U.S. Army soldier and
general.
He was born in
Dunn, North Carolina. Lee is often referred to as the "Father of the U.S.
Airborne".
He graduated from
North Carolina State College as a second lieutenant in the
ROTC program in
1917.
William Lee served in
World War I with the
American Expeditionary Force in
France, and by the time the United States entered
World War II, He was promoted to general and was a proponent of
paratrooper warfare. Although airborne units were not popular with the top U.S. Army commanders, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored the concept, and Lee organized the first paratroop platoon. This led to the Provisional Parachute Group, and then the
United States Airborne Command. General Lee was the first commander at the new parachute school at
Fort Benning, in west-central
Georgia. He earned the
Distinguished Service Medal for his early leadership in airborne forces.
By August of
1942 Lee was the first commander of the new
101st Airborne Division, based at
Camp Claiborne, in central
Louisiana. He promised his new recruits
"The 101st has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny."
Bill Lee helped plan the
D-Day drops into
Normandy, and had trained to jump with his men, but was sent back to the states a few months before the battle due to either a heart attack or a stroke. He was replaced in command by General
Maxwell D. Taylor. To honor their "father", the paratroopers yelled out "Bill Lee!" as they made their jump on D-Day.
Lee retired from the Army in late
1944 and died at Dunn, North Carolina in
1948.
The General William C. Lee Airborne Museum is located in Dunn.
On
October 11,
2004 the
U.S. Senate passed a bill to rename the Dunn Post Office, the "General William Carey Lee Post Office."
* Autry, Jerry. Assisted by Kathryn Autry.
General William C. Lee: Father of the Airborne : Just Plain Bill. San Francisco: Airborne Press, 1995. ISBN 0934145245
