Lost Before Combat: My Uncle Was Among Thousands Who Perished Training for WWII

Some miles southeast of Oregon Inlet on the North Carolina coast and near the barrier islands known as the Outer Banks, my uncle Roy Len Lee’s remains lie at the bottom of the sea. Not far away is the wreckage of his U.S. Navy Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter. In mid-January 1943 during a gunnery training flight, Uncle Len had to bail out for unknown reasons. He was not rescued. My uncle was one of thousands of Americans who left their families to fight for their country only to die in training. Although the U.S. Navy and Army recorded combat casualties, precise numbers of the dead and injured from training accidents were not as well documented.

Aviation Personnel Fatalities in World War II from December 7, 1941, to December 31, 1946

Growing up, I knew little of Uncle Len’s life or his flying career. After my dad passed away last year, my sister and I found correspondence and photographs that turned our uncle from a statistic into a real person.

Roy Len Lee was the oldest of 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys. They lived on a cotton farm in west Texas. My grandfather died in January 1938 leaving my grandmother, Ira Lee, to care for the children and manage the farm. Uncle Len became a patriarchal figure in the family. He attended Texas Technological College in Lubbock (now Texas Tech University) and played on the school’s Red Raiders football team.

To satisfy a growing requirement for military pilots, Congress passed Public Law No. 153 in mid-1939, creating the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). The program was established at 13 colleges. CPTP trained young men to fly to become private pilots in civil aviation, but the ultimate goal was to prepare them to become military pilots, should they be needed for national defense during an emergency. Students received 72 hours of ground school and 35 to 40 hours of flight training in a small airplane to qualify for a private pilot certificate.*

As documented in his civilian logbook, Uncle Len started his flight training on June 24, 1940. Harry G. Peiser was his flight instructor and his frequent comments in my uncle’s logbook—“interested,” “improving,” and “normal progress”—show Uncle Len to be an average student. He completed his first solo flight in July. By August 22, Uncle Len had attended ground school for 15 hours and had logged 17 hours flying with Peiser and 18 hours flying solo, practicing takeoffs and landings and maneuvers to demonstrate precise and coordinated flight.

Peiser noted that Uncle Len was “relaxed in spins” but on one flight, his “coordination [was] Bad in turns.” Like everyone who learns to fly, Uncle Len had good days and bad. He passed his private pilot check ride on August 23, 1940, after 35 hours and 15 minutes of instruction and solo flying. Like most new pilots, the first thing he did was give rides to friends.

Uncle Len volunteered for the U.S. Navy in September 1941. He was assigned to basic training at Naval Air Station Dallas, Texas. Three months later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. When America’s sons and daughters left home to serve their country, their families were often left short-handed and struggling. “I know that help and labor must be getting scarce,” said Len, “but if us boys don’t get in there and pitch for the army and navy, the Japs [sic] are going to be doing that work [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 6/2/42].”

The Navy transferred him to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, where he completed training and received his pilot’s wings and the designation naval aviator on August 21, 1942.

After the Navy established fighter squadron VF-22 on September 30, 1942, Uncle Len was probably among the first pilots assigned to the unit. They flew constantly and when flying cross-country, they could sometimes select a destination. He wrote:

"We fly 7 days a week but one of us gets off every 6th day. We get to take a plane and go anywhere we wish and stay all night. Think I will go to Washington and New York, City. You see we are an operating squadron now and don’t have to go through all the usual red tape that you usually do in the navy.  We do just about as we please as long as it is [with]in the limits. I took my fighter plane over to Elizabeth City [North Carolina] Saturday afternoon [because I] had to order a bunch of stuff for our welfare [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/7/42]."

In a letter home dated December 14, 1942, Uncle Len described a day in the squadron:

"Dearest Mother and All: I’m officer of the day today and have been very busy. The duty extends from 12 o’clock one day to twelve the next. It is certainly some responsibility too. I’m the senior officer in charge of at least a million dollars’ worth of equipment [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/14/42]."

Like most pilots, my uncle loved to fly. “Yes,” he wrote:

“I am flying the Grumman fighter (called the Wildcat). You’ve probably read about it in Pacific Air battles. It is sure a fine little fighter. I say little, it is small but weighs about 8 thousand pounds, has a 1200 horsepower motor, carries 6 fifty caliber machine guns. They fire a bullet about the size of a .410 gauge shot gun shell. These guns will spit out several hundred bullets in a few seconds. I’ve seen my “Wildcat” do 6 miles a minute in flight. Some speed eh! – Of course you know that none of this is for publication [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/14/42].”

The six machine guns fitted to Uncle Len’s Wildcat indicate he was flying the F4F-4 subtype of the Wildcat. The Museum’s Wildcat that will be on display in the upcoming Jay I. Kislak World War II in the Air gallery is also a F4F-4, but built by General Motors and designated the FM-1.

Early in November, Uncle Len made an epic cross-country flight with stops at Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Pensacola, Florida, then to Mobile, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Dallas, Texas, before arriving at a place 50 miles outside of Wichita, Kansas, but not named in his letters. He took a train back to Jacksonville, and soon after arriving, the Navy ordered him to report to Norfolk, Virginia [Len Lee to Ira Lee, 11/16/42].

The fighter pilot life was exciting, but his thoughts were never far from family:

“Mother I was glad to get all the news about the crops, etc. Don’t bite off more than you can chew on those hogs. That sounds like a heck of a job feeding all [of] them [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/7/42]. A few days later, he wrote, “Hope the cotton is out or on its way by now anyhow. Russell [the author’s father] you’ve just got to bring that report card up. [You are] one of the Lee boys aren’t you? Well I’m studying and working hard for you and I think you will do your best for us. I don’t work all the time but when I do I try – some lecture eh. Ha! [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/14/42].”

In his last letter home, my Uncle Len wished he could spend Christmas at home.

“Well it doesn’t seem as though I’m going to make it in this Xmas – I was all set to make a cross-country flight up to N. Y. City tomorrow, but the fog is closed in tighter than a jug. I think I am going to get 3 days off New Years so maybe I will get to go to Washington. The skipper says after the first of the year we are going to work harder than ever, seven days a week flying and no days off. It looks as if we will be shoving off [to the Pacific combat area] pretty soon now. I’m liking it better all the time, we do lots of shooting and combat practice and we are getting pretty good [Roy Len Lee to Mrs. Ira Lee, 12/23/42, from Norfolk, VA].”

Uncle Len died on January 15, 1943, and the U.S. Navy notified my grandmother the next day. Getting to know my uncle Len through correspondence and photographs, I find myself mourning the death of a person I never met. How wonderful it would have been to talk to him about his life, his wartime service, and what it was like to fly the Wildcat at “six miles per minute [360 mph].” Thank you for your service, Uncle Len, and rest in peace. I salute you and the thousands of Americans who died preparing for war.

_{My thanks to the Museum’s librarian Phil Edwards for taking considerable effort to compile primary and secondary sources of statistics for U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Air Forces personnel losses during training.}

_{*Doug Siegfried, “Flight Training During the Second World War, Part One: 1939-1941, The Hook: Journal of Carrier Aviation, Winter 2006, 37.}