Her parents were Yuet Lee and Ssiu Lan Wong, first-generation Chinese Americans who had immigrated to Portland from Taishan, Guangdong.

She was involved in athletics such as swimming and handball, loved to play cards, and in her teenage years, learned how to drive.

[2] Following graduation from Commerce High School[3] in 1929, Lee found a job as an elevator operator at Liebes Department Store in downtown Portland.

Lee remained in the country despite the war and was in Canton when hundreds of civilians were killed in Japanese air attacks.

In 1938, following another unsuccessful effort to aid the Air Force as a pilot, Lee, a non-citizen, knew she had to return to the United States, and did so after escaping the country to Hong Kong.

Experienced women pilots like Lee were eager to join the WASP and responded to interview requests by Cochran.

[13] Although flying under military command, the women pilots of the WASP were classified as civilians and were paid through the civil service.

They delivered aircraft, which were being manufactured in large numbers in converted automobile factories, to points of embarkation, where they would then be shipped to the European and Pacific War fronts.

A farmer, armed with a pitchfork, chased Lee around her plane as he was shouting to his neighbors that the Japanese had invaded Kansas.

[17][18] Fellow WASP pilot Sylvia Dahmes Clayton recalled: "Hazel provided me with an opportunity to learn about a different culture at a time when I did not know anything else.

[3] She was part of Class 44-18 Flight B and went on to be among the 134 women pilots who flew "Pursuit," that is faster, high powered fighters such as the P-63 Kingcobra, P-51 Mustang and P-39 Airacobra.

During the war Lee and the other Pursuit pilots delivered over 5,000 fighters to Great Falls, which was a link in supplying Soviet allies fighting the Nazi forces with planes under the Lend-Lease program.

[20] Shortly after 2 p.m., Lee was cleared to land in Great Falls with a large number of P-63's approaching the airport at the same time.

The aircraft were engulfed in flames and Lee was pulled from the burning wreckage of her airplane with her flight jacket still smoldering.

Only three days after learning of her death, the Lee family in Portland received another telegram informing them that Hazel's brother Victor, who was serving with the U.S.

For over three decades after the war, members of the WASP and their supporters attempted to secure military status for the women pilots.