SS Fort Lee was a T2 tanker built for the United States Maritime Commission during World War II.

The boat had drifted 2,850 miles (2,480 nmi; 4,590 km) over 10 weeks before landing on Japanese-held Sumba Island with three men remaining.

[4] Fort Lee (MC Hull #327) was laid down on 24 October 1942 at Sun Shipbuilding in Chester, Pennsylvania; launched on 25 February 1943; and delivered on 15 March 1943.

In late October 1944, Fort Lee left Abadan, Iran, headed to Brisbane, Australia, with 93 thousand barrels (~12,700 t) of Navy Bunker C fuel as well as rubber and some ores.

[2][4] On 16 November, two weeks after Fort Lee went down, the men in lifeboat #1 were rescued by American Liberty ship SS Mary Ball.

[4] The story, as pieced together by Hall and M. Emerson Wiles III, an employee of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory is that on 13 January 1945 – 2+1⁄2 months after Fort Lee went down – lifeboat #4, with only three men remaining, came ashore on the south side of Japanese-held Sumba, 2,850 miles (4,600 km) from where Fort Lee sank.

One of the three men, Robert F. Lanning, a member of the Naval Armed Guard contingent aboard Fort Lee, was taken to Membora, on the north side of Sumba, where he died that same day.

[4] One account claims that they were executed, along with other Allied POWs, during a rampage by Japanese officers in September 1945, a month after the surrender of Japan.