Admiral Willis 'Ching' Lee - The Ultimate Sharpshooter

[Music] ten years after one ernest j king was born in the northwestern us one of his most able subordinates first saw sunlight in a small hamlet in owen county kentucky the family had been there for almost as long as the usa had been a country and the baby was named after his father willis augustus lee senior but as his father's career caused them to move a few hours walk north to a town whose population actually exceeded one's ability to easily remember every single person's name the young willis augustus lee jr grew up amidst a relatively large family with his already obviously quick mind proving equally capable of excelling academically and getting him into trouble playing practical jokes on anybody within easy reach during these formative years another of lee's talents began to present itself as the young lee would often be seen heading off into the woods with as one observer described it an unlimited amount of ammunition and an unlimited enthusiasm for shooting it which when he wasn't using his marksmanship for somewhat more destructive pranks would also lead his occasional retainer as a pest controller methodically ridding public buildings of sparrows rats and other small vermin unfortunately his predilection for explosives also left him with a lifelong need for thick glasses when a homemade bomb exploded in his face damaging his eyesight however his interests lay beyond whiskey distilling and the practice of law and in the aftermath of the spanish american war lee applied to the naval academy at annapolis arriving in spring 1904 alongside another boy who would later see notable service mark mitchell although the lattice career would be put back somewhat by poor performance which forced him to resign and then reapply a couple of years later thomas kincaid was another classmate albeit a somewhat more dedicated one who would graduate alongside lee it would be during this time at the academy that lee acquired his most famous nickname with a somewhat round face and a hint of yellow to his skin tone making people think of the chinese he rapidly became known as [ __ ] lee which gradually became modified to ching li apparently because it rolled more easily off the tongue during his time at the academy his training cruises whipsawed between ancient sailing vessels of pre-civil war vintage that were equipped with auxiliary steam engines if they were lucky through to ships like the uss nevada a monitor but one that had been built less than a decade earlier and was therefore equipped with somewhat more modern machinery and guns with that said lee's preferred method of study appeared to be to speed read through books once consign them to memory and then get on with either drawing or shooting his two actual main interests unsurprisingly the latter netted him a gold medal for excellence in target practice along with a place on the academy's rifle team although his general study habits would also mean that he graduated almost exactly in the middle of his class still one suspects that he was somewhat more proud of his shooting achievements as he won both the national rifle and pistol championships defeating 683 other competitors remarking later that he'd only actually meant to enter the rifle competition but he cleared the course so quickly that he decided to wander over and join in the pistol competition because well he had the rest of the day available and he'd gotten bored he used specialist sporting glasses for these competitions where one lens was only a half lens to make sure that a bolt coming back didn't smash the glass straight back into his face but his eyesight was the single greatest threat to his career and his classmates however conspired to help him by utilizing their differing places in the queue for the test courtesy of their differing surnames to let him know what letters the chart had that day allowing lee to pass the one exam he otherwise could not possibly have hoped to complete simply by memorizing the letters his other achievements were then enough to lead to a recommendation that he be allowed to graduate in spite of his vision a recommendation which was approved and thus in june 1908 lee graduated and was assigned to an old sailing vessel and the navy rifle team over the summer before receiving his first true sea assignment the brand new pre-dreadnought battleship uss idaho which he joined that autumn albeit that she was small even for a pre-dreadnought and had only just completed even though it was two years after dreadnought herself had joined the royal navy she would end up being sold along with her sister uss mississippi to greece six years later but in the interim she would be lee's home for two years allowing him to be part of the welcoming committee for the return of the great white fleet in 1909 after a brief stay aboard a century-old ship of the line that was then being used as an accommodation vessel lee next found himself bound for china aboard the small cruiser uss new orleans which had been assigned to the asiatic fleet whilst there as is tradition for capable naval officers lee co-authored a paper which was published in the united states naval institute's proceedings journal for early 1910. somewhat unsurprisingly the subject was shooting specifically shooting with revolvers one of lee's top tips was to acquire accuracy before you try for speed sadly it seems that the then rear admiral david beatty was not a subscriber to the usni's proceedings which i guess is something else i can hold against him promoted from midshipman to ensign in late 1910 lee was then transferred to the small gunboat uss helena where he amused himself in between helping compile various reports on chinese internal squabbles with challenging various other naval detachments from foreign navies to shooting competitions which he would of course win this happy state of affairs lasted until 1913 when he was recalled home via collier to take up his duties aboard the battleship uss new hampshire with regular calls ashore to take his now habitual slot in the navy rifle team aboard his new ship lee was placed in command of one of the ship's crew divisions and with the ships patrolling off the coast of mexico the fleet then migrated to its winter sailing grounds off cuba before returning in spring 1914 whereupon the veracruz incident blew up lee was assigned to a landing party but the new hampshire's men found themselves exposed in the streets when they came under fire snipers were a considerable problem lee realized the only way to deal with them would require getting them to give away their position and so with a borrowed rifle he amazed his shipmates by sitting on a street curb waiting for the telltale glint of sunlight on metal as a barrel swung his way then quick as a flash the rifle would rise sight in on some otherwise unseen target speak once and then return to rest but hunting for multiple snipers was not his only activity during the fighting he was also responsible for commanding a detachment of men and was commended by his captain for rescuing a wounded shipmate who was stuck in the open under a full side of rifle and machine gun fire upon returning to the united states in july lee was retroactively promoted to lieutenant junior grade the backdated commission which finally reached him in late september was marked as valid from early june of the previous year which also meant he could collect 15 months additional back pay he would remain aboard the new hampshire until the end of 1950 when he was given his first shaw assignment naval inspector of ordnance at the union tool company in illinois a role which rapidly expanded to cover factories owned by different companies supplying the navy across six different midwestern states but in early 1916 his eyesight cropped up again as an issue with a letter arriving that stated you are advised that the naval examining board before which you recently appeared found you mentally morally and professionally qualified for promotion and recommended you therefore the board of medical examiners found you not physically qualified for promotion because of myopia and recommended that you be further examined physically in six months in order to ascertain whether the present extent of your incapacity still exists at that time it wouldn't be until early 1918 after further assessment and two letters of recommendation from two separate former captains that he was finally made a full lieutenant albeit again backdated august 1916 which led to another nice tranche of back pay but before he'd even had a chance to make the necessary adjustments to his uniform lee would receive another letter a temporary promotion to lieutenant commander backdated to the start of the year the u.s navy was now at war and suddenly euroability mattered a lot more than medical technicalities lee's job had grown ever more complex as not only was the us navy's own orders for ordnance beginning to ramp up but many of the factories that he was overseeing were now also producing weapons for britain and france and in addition lee had met the love of his life at a party in illinois but he felt his talents could be better used at sea and asks to be assigned to sea duty in europe this was granted but he arrived for service aboard the uss o'brien nine days after the november armistice came into effect as the u.s navy prepared to then move most of its forces back to the us itself this left lee bouncing between shore assignments at various temporary headquarters sea service again on the uss lee which was spelt l-e-a as opposed to his own l double e and after many varied duties he would make it home in summer 1919. whereupon he married and was assigned once again to the u.s navy rifle team along with a stint as exo of the subtender uss bushnell albeit that one suspects that this was to allow him to be fairly easily lifted back out of that role again as he had been earmarked for a spot on the us rifle team heading to the 1920 olympics here he proved to be in his element working as part of a five-man team he netted gold in the men's 50 meter small ball rifle gold in the men's 300 meter free rifle gold in the men's 300 meter military rifle prone position gold in the men's 300 meter military rifle standing position gold in the men's 600 meter military rifle in prone position gold in the men's 300 plus 600 meter military rifle in the prone position silva in the men's 300 meter military rifle standing position and bronze in the men's 100 meter team running deer with single shots this hall was added to his existing shooting awards by the end of his life the display that his wife put together to display all his shooting medals has expanded to the size of a table and held over 70 separate medals and other awards and citations by now it was late 1920 and lee was informed that his temporary lieutenant commander rank was now permanent and shortly thereafter he was given his first command the new destroyer uss fairfax assigned to destroy a squadron 8 and based at charleston south carolina unsurprisingly he quickly also became squadron gunnery officer and after nine months he was moved to command the slightly newer uss william b preston which was then assigned to the asiatic fleet with the rest of destroyer squadron 14 heading to their new station via the atlantic the mediterranean the suez canal the indian ocean and thence to the pacific as opposed to trying a straight shot across the world's largest ocean in a collection of four stacker destroyers eventually reaching manila in august 1922 lee found that his old captain from the new hampshire edwin anderson was now an admiral and in command of the asiatic fleet during his tenure lee advanced another technology he'd begun working on whilst aboard the fairfax rat extermination formerly done by air rifle with a tripwire he now had arranged an electrically operated guillotine with a push button to dispatch unwanted intruders to the wardroom since lee couldn't be content without something to shoot at he decided to pull a fast one on the royal navy sailors who were based at hong kong allowing them to see him shoot poorly which in turn meant that they were all too happy to accept him as part of an american shooting team in a friendly competition which up until then the british sailors had usually won when they competed against visiting american ships only of course for lee to promptly turn the tables and clean house his ship would also take part in the relief effort surrounding the great kanto earthquake with lee also taking every opportunity to spread his love of shooting to the ship's gunners working with them to devise solutions to the inadequate range finders they'd been equipped with as well as giving a hand to a british team that was attempting the first flight around the world their competition was from the u.s army so when the british aircraft crashed and a replacement had to be rushed almost 8 000 miles to the crash site lee and his destroyer were only too happy to have to oblige in the end the american plane won anyway as fog got the better of the replacement british aircraft somewhere off the canadian coast but you know it wasn't for lack of trying summer 1924 would see lee back in the u.s back on the navy rifle team again and serving in new york navy dockyard where autumn 1926 would find him being promoted to commander with another happy retroactive promotion date this time to april of the same year and immediately after the letter lee was assigned as executive officer of the auxiliary ship uss antares whose main duty at the time was to repair targets shot up by warships of the fleet after a year of this duty lee was back in command of yet another four stack destroyer this time the uss lardner of destroyer squadron nine this would be his last destroyer command as in summer 1928 he was sent to the naval war college where he studied alongside the then commanders aldendorf and mccain amongst others graduating in 1929 he was then briefly assigned as an ordinance inspector and then back onto the navy shooting team this time as its captain before being sent to serve on the chief of naval operations staff where he wrote a paper on compensating for the effect of earth's rotation when firing battleship guns at long ranges which a fire control officer in uss west virginia read and applied to his ship's guns the battleship then went on to win the fleet's gunnery competitions for three years running spring 1931 saw the now commander lee assigned to the uss pennsylvania his first battleship assignment in a decade and a half and his first posting on a battleship that post dated the all big gun revolution as fleet flagship the pennsylvania was seen as a good assignment although lee's position as navigator was probably not one he relished the most but in summer 1932 the ship's captain had taken ill and subsequently died and the xo led the ship for a few months before a new captain could be arranged and the exo then transferred out which left lee as the new exo however he also got so involved in the ship's gunnery and improvements that could be made to that that by june 1933 he was assigned to the navy department ashore specifically to overhaul the fleet's gunnery and tactical instructions completely unable to resist further practical shooting lee amused himself by setting up a bb gun shooting gallery that used the full length of the office and left one of his colleagues having to learn to put up with the zip and zing of small projectiles buzzing past his head on route to distant targets promoted captain in august 1936 with this time only two months of retroactive back pay lee was now on his way to his first major command uss concord an omaha glass light cruiser having demonstrated that he knew how to handle the ship lee then let his subordinates take over most of those duties so that they could improve their own skills whilst he rejoiced at the regular gunnery exercises that the ship would undertake where he would use his own calculations to validate the navy range tables and rangefinders and make any needed adjustments to more closely reflect the actual capabilities of his guns a concorde would distinguish itself during fleet problem 18 as well as more generally collecting a variety of awards and efficiency ease during lee's tenure in command this tenure came to an end in july 1938 although he did remain aboard as he was now part of admiral stark's staff at least until november when they transferred to the uss brooklyn and then two months later to her sister ship the uss honolulu and on both ships the rapid-firing six-inch guns delighted lee here they remained except for a brief return to the concorde in early 1939 for exercises having seen outfleet problem 20 from the honolulu lee left the ship in may heading for another stint his third in the navy department it was now time to prepare the us navy for war now assistant director of the fleet training division lee devoted himself almost exclusively to raising the standards of gunnery across the fleet with extra focus on also revising the fleet's tactics combining his natural talents with his atsi experience lee travelled the length and breadth of the country evaluating everything from the mechanisms of fire control equipment to the layout of plotting rooms and conning towers being designed for the new us fast battleships and despite being a gunnery expert he actually opposed the idea of adding more alaska class ships to the building schedule instead having determined that the resources would be better put into carriers as lee's overriding priority was to give the men of the us navy the best quality equipment and the best suited ships to allow them the maximum performance potential above anything else having heard that admiral king was unhappy with the office of naval intelligence shortfalls in terms of photography he helped to arrange a new training course that sent naval officers who would be assigned photography heavy work to hollywood in order to learn from the best he also conspired partially behind king's back to send key officers over to the uk to learn the art of photo interpretation something that by 1940 the british had become somewhat expert at via necessity those resulting lessons were then incorporated into a school of photo interpretation back in the us giving the united states armed services an immediate advantage when a year and a half later working out what a photo of a small specific island actually showed could be a matter of life or death again operating semi-covertly lee cancelled the orders of one officer he thought was especially promising who was on his way to commander destroyer and instead sent him to london as naval attache but privately telling him to effectively exile himself to scapula flow in the british home fleet specifically telling him send us all the information you can think of value to the navy in regard to tactics gunnery convoy operations anti-submarine warfare air defense and the practical aspects of shipboard radar as far as reliability and performance are concerned eight months of reports from lieutenant commander wellings thus gave lee the necessary ammunition to take on the naval research laboratory they'd been opposing closer work between the royal navy and the u.s navy on the grounds that they believed that the u.s navy was ahead of the royal navy in almost every field courtesy of course of uh naval research lab's own inventions whereas lee now laid out in exacting and excruciating detail how in almost every field bar carrier operations in his opinion it was the us navy that was deficient soon enough a slew of officers was heading across the atlantic eastbound and experience and ideas were flowing westbound along with wellings who returned to the u.s in summer 1941 after having had a front row seat to the demolition of the battleship bismarck as he'd been aboard hms rodney at the time whilst all of this had been coming across the atlantic lee had managed to get himself aboard hms king george v earlier in the year when it came over to take various british officials to their part in a conference with the us lee was then promoted to director of fleet training and here he set his teeth into a number of additional efforts including a minor war with the bureau of ordnance over whether to focus the fleet's anti-aircraft efforts on the 5-inch 38 gun which was the bureau of ordnance preference or whether to also look at replacing the 50 cal and 1.1 in inch light and medium anti-aircraft guns fortunately for all concerned lee managed to find an ally in a senior bureau of ordnance officer rear admiral blandi and between them they engineered the programs that saw the introduction of the 20 millimeter oerlikon and 40 millimeter bofors into us navy service as well as the expansion of anti-aircraft training programs so that the men of the fleet would know what to do with the new guns lee was also concerned with the adoption of new mark 14 sites for the proliferation of anti-aircraft weapons and was especially interested in the deployment use and effectiveness of radar in the fleet lee recommended another school be set up to train operators in how to use all this new electronics as well as learning the details of how it worked himself september 1941 saw his efforts partially rewarded with a promotion to rear admiral but barely had his adjusted dress uniform arrived back from the tailors then the japanese attacked pearl harbor lee took the attack in stride whilst some officers would sink into a temporary depression as the scale of the disaster became apparent lee's primary response appears to have been to just put extra emphasis on sending as many rounds of ammunition to the new front lines as was humanly possible soon after admiral king took up the reigns as head of the navy met with lee predesignated fleet training to fleet readiness and sent him back to work lee determined amongst other things that the new levels of wartime security fell far below the requirements when you compared how they actually worked to how they should have operated on paper and he decided to get himself an id card with hitler's photo on it instead of his own which went completely unchallenged it eventually took the production of yet another card with a photo of an actress on it to get him stopped after half a day of wandering around one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the continental united states lee may have been many things but a may west look alike turns out to not be one of them he now turned his attention to the vast array of deficiencies that were cropping up in a navy that was struggling to adapt from peace to war submarines reported they were having to cut short their patrols due to a lack of pure water there were new evaporators that could do the job but they were held up in endless rounds of paperwork and testing the lee sent out a one-line directive ordering every available unit to be moved out to the fleet for installation paperwork or not later lieutenant commander ali burke complained to one of lee's subordinates that a supplier was providing poor quality breaches for the new 40 millimeter bofors guns that were then in production lee told his subordinate pete mcdowell to let the bureau of ordinance know that they should switch suppliers the bureau of ordinance came back more interested in where exactly he'd gotten that information than whether or not it was actually true to which lee wrote back to the bureau of ordinance that if they had a problem they could take it up with him which seemed to draw a line under those inquiries mcdowell was next sent by lee on a slight of hand mission to the bureau of ships having worked out the maximum number of 20 millimeter 40 millimeter and five inch anti-aircraft mounts that could physically fit on a ship he came bearing a letter asking them to sign off on the procurement of the necessary guns the bureau of ships resisted worried about the effects of so many anti-aircraft weapons and seaworthiness mcdowell pointed out reasonably that the letter only authorized the procurement of the weapons the bureau of ships relented and signed the document mcdowell then headed back to lee's office erased the full stop and appended and installation onto procurement which was the final sentence of the letter and sent the letter up the line and soon enough any time a u.s navy ship arrived back in port they'd find a bewildering array of anti-aircraft guns just waiting to be installed lee applied his particular brand of practical logic to all sorts of things when the vt fuse actually the radar guided proximity fuse was held up by insistence that it should be 100 reliable he overruled that demand and fast-tracked them for production and frontline duty when the bureau of ordnance and the bureau of ships dragged their feet on installing radar on every ship in the navy claiming production shortages lee sent them a note telling them that well if they couldn't produce enough radars in the united states they should supplement their stocks by buying british magically new radars suddenly materialized on the 10th of august 1942 having further not so much stepped on bjord's toes as repeatedly run over them with a steamroller as his department fast-tracked dozens of innovations for operation torch almost before the but that's not gone through all of our paperwork could leave buford's desk lee was rewarded for his diligence by admiral king he was given a new job commander of the first u.s navy fast battleship division in history with his flag to be raised on the newly commissioned uss south dakota he began assembling a staff as the ship sailed for the pacific unfortunately shortly after the arrival there the ship hit an uncharted reef that sent it back to pearl harbor to repair a 150-foot gash in the hull lee remained in the pacific aboard transport with his current one-man staff until a few days later when on the 14th of september uss washington arrived which would now become lee's flagship the other part of the small division being made up of washington's sister ship uss north carolina at least for the next 24 hours or so until submarine i19 blew a hole in north carolina's bow whilst in the process of sinking the carrier uss wasp and just like that what should have been a three battleship division was just uss washington with lee and his sole staff member aboard still he took the opportunity to expand his staff somewhat and began hauling in certain members of washington's crew for detailed questioning first a lieutenant who was in charge of the ship's electronic maintenance and could tell him all about the radar that had been installed on this particular vessel then the ship's fire control officer and then officers from other ships in his formation such as uss atlanta's gunnery officer lieutenant commander hooper the washington's fire control officer was a particularly frequent visitor technically commander walsh the ship's gunnery officer should have been there but hupat had a far deeper understanding of the underlying technology than walsh did and even hooper struggled to keep up with the lee who was convinced amongst other things that the bureau of ordinances tables for the ship's powder were wrong in his opinion the powder that was powering the shells was actually far more powerful than specified and if they used the traditional tables that would make the ship shoot long he devised a test proved his point and then told trooper and walsh to make the needed adjustments to their tables his search for new staff turned up a second man lieutenant commander cern who became his flag secretary which was just as well since lee only tended to do the paperwork which actually interested him whereas cern seemed to exist in large part simply for the questionable joy of filling in navy forms in triplicate xern then in turn sourced a couple of communications officers and lee's staff was up to a mighty four although it would grow as the course of the war went on azalea familiarized himself with the interplay and capabilities of the cxam air search radar the sg surface search radar and the fire control radars he also found something new to shoot glass balls that we used to hold up fishing nets and these were now littering the ocean so whenever the ship passed by a collection of them lee could usually be found blasting away at them with his pistol usually after having invited anybody interested over the pa system to come and join him lee enjoyed the fact that since washington had been designed before radar was around its radar room had been wedged into the space that was supposed to actually be his own sea cabin just after the flag bridge this in turn meant he could easily spend plenty of time there and be at a moment's call back on either the flag or navigation bridges as opposed to later ships whose own cics were deep below the ship's armor this in turn allowed him to analyze not just how the radar worked but also how the things it monitored worked as a result of which a number of excursions saw the u.s formation entirely evade the attention of japanese scout aircraft simply because lee had figured out what their search patterns were and was able to direct his formations to avoid where he knew the scout plane was going to go next as the guadalcanal campaign heated up an admiral halsey took over from admiral gormley washington was gradually deployed closer and closer to the operational area along with her escort which consisted at the time of the cruiser atlanta and two destroyers as well as briefing and conversing with the gunnery and fire control officers of every ship in his force lee kept up constant gunnery practice using atlanta stationed at 35 000 yards and the offset fire technique lee had the atlanta report back on the fall of shot then he'd go away make some adjustments and try again soon despite the huge range involved atlanta's crew were treated to the unnerving site of tightly grouped salvos smashing down directly in their ship's wake at each practice if not for the offset any one of those salvos would have completely disintegrated the light cruiser in one titanic strike lee picked up a fifth member of his staff and on the 25th of october was operating off savo island where the radar operators learned to pick out the returns of ships from the returns caused by the nearby islands mountains and rocks which would prove somewhat useful a bit later on uss south dakota was also back from repairs and joined the formation along with more cruisers and destroyers although these smaller ships would soon be stripped away for use in other formations as casualties mounted the first night of the naval battle of guadalcanal was fought and whilst it kept the japanese navy away from henderson field it also devastated the us formation that had fought the action the following night despite reservations about the use of battleships in the close waters off guadalcanal admiral lee and his two vessels were called into action along with the four destroyers who happen to have the most fuel in their tanks and were available in the area lee was left with destroyers that he'd not only never worked with they'd never worked with each other he rapidly sent over the outlines of a plan via signal light but there wasn't even enough time to have all the captains come aboard washington for a brief conference another issue was washington's surface search radar back when it was being installed the ship's radar officer had tried to persuade the bureau of ordnance to let them mount it elsewhere on the ship they'd refused stuck to their original plan and now the ship had a 60 degree arc aft where it was blind as far as radar was concerned still despite these limitations lee led his formation into the second night of the naval battle of guadalcanal the details of and the story about that particular fight can be found in the video link appearing on your screen right now so if you want you can go and have a look at that and then come back to this video afterwards but suffice to say that lee's persistence in training the washington's crew for excellent guttery paid off although the first salvos knocked off his glasses which was soon recovered and after some skirmishing with the japanese escort forces costly his destroyers in exchange for which washington fatally damaged the japanese destroyer ion army with its secondary batteries the main action commenced south dakota was plagued with electrical issues and shortly thereafter by explosive ones as it stumbled somewhat blindly into the path of japanese guns but lee aboard washington had been tracking the kirishima for some time thanks to the blind spot aft they weren't 100 sure if the radar return was the japanese battle cruiser or just the lost south dakota but when the japanese opened fire and removed all doubt washington was ready to unleash instant revenge within seven minutes more than 20 heavy 16-inch shells smashed into the hapless battle cruiser and she was done for although in his typically modest fashion lee dramatically underestimated the number of hits he'd scored in his initial reports as he counted only those that he could see and visually id as successful 16-inch strikes in fact the majority of his shots had either penetrated underwater and into the hull or just punched so far into the kirishima that their explosions weren't immediately visible externally this bought south dakota the time and space to withdraw but it also left lee and washington as the sole remaining operational u.s navy unit on the field stuck in a close nice action with a lot of angry japanese cruisers and destroyers who were all armed with long lances with shells whistling past left right and center lee's training again paid off as the secondary 5-inch gun crew started targeting japanese searchlights and began to volley star shells at the enemy this didn't affect the ship's own radar-directed gunnery but the gunners realized that having burning white phosphorus flares floating down between the two formations was probably likely to make a bit of a mess of any optical fire control solutions aboard the japanese ships washington danced its way through the night dodging all incoming torpedoes and almost every shell save one that made a nice neat hole in the air search radar antenna observing the japanese navy's withdrawal before heading on south to safety and a rendezvous with the slightly singed south dakota which was soon heading off again for repairs the second time in its first year of service washington also needed a bit of work but that could be done in theatre which included relining the boilers with new insulation bricks as the engineers had gone so all out over the course of the night the they'd managed to melt the previous ones still it was only the tail end of 1942 there was a lot more of world war ii left to go but with that said as the guadalcanal campaign turned into a japanese retreat it was a relatively quiet time for washington with the most excitement coming in mid february 1943 when lee was presented with the navy cross by admiral halsey when asked to give a speech he simply told the crew of his ship you won it i wear it shortly thereafter the first consignment of vt fuses something that lee if you'll remember had fast-tracked back during his time in washington dc arrived in theater although orders technically forbade it lee had one of these new devices brought up to his cabin and then cut in half after being disarmed so that he could examine how it worked he even delayed a summons by april halsey in order to learn more details of the device shortly thereafter a japanese recon aircraft was spotted on radar in a barrage of a dozen vt fused five inch rounds blazed off into the night and a few moments later a blazing aircraft fell from the sky lee then pressed for a massive increase in orders for the fuse which would duly start to arrive and be distributed liberally across the fleet in the coming months april 1943 saw lee get an additional title as well as leading battleship division six he was now also commander battleship's pacific fleet which allowed him to manage who got command of all battleships in the theater and who got to lead the other battleship divisions there as well may saw the ship back in pearl harbor for a refit her sg radar was now moved to provide 360 degree coverage and more anti-aircraft guns were fitted amongst other changes most welcome was the departure of the troublesome 1.1 inch guns and their replacement by no less than 60 new 40 millimeter bofors in quad mounts the new fire control radar was also capable of spotting the fall of shot and transmitting this directly to the fire control room as opposed to the earlier slightly less high-resolution radar which also needed to be phoned through an omen of what was to come was an additional shipment of nose-fused high-explosive shells suitable for shore bombardment with much of the immediate fighting consisting of the remainder of the solomon's campaign which took place in waters that were far too confined for battleship operations lee bounced around a number of other ships including the uss hercules the uss massachusetts and the uss indiana to observe various operations although he would inevitably always end up back aboard washington as it was his favorite flagship however as the gilbert islands operations got underway the battleships were back in business primarily as anti-aircraft escorts but when the island of nauru was scheduled to be bypassed instead of invaded it was noticed that some of the industries there could use a reduction in their capabilities and so lee summoned every operational fast battleship in the pacific leading from washington the column included north carolina south dakota indiana massachusetts and alabama suffice to say operations ashore did take something of a downturn the arrival of lee's erstwhile classmate mark mitchell to lead a fast carrier force that the battleships were escorting was a welcome event for lee as it meant that the two admirals worked exceptionally well together something that might not have happened with any other two admirals since lee was senior to mitchell but mitchell was overall in command due to the task force being centered on the carriers which usually does lead to a few tussles between admirals the arrival of the iowa and new jersey in early 1944 boosted the firepower of lee's command considerably the exact ships that were assigned to his particular division would fluctuate over the course of the conflict but whilst they'd get to take part in a number of shore bombardment operations the majority of this role would be fulfilled by the older battleships as the faster units were typically either screening the carriers from air attack or forming skirmish line in case the japanese navy's capital ships came out to play but in february 1944 lee was forced to change flagships when the uss indiana began maneuvering ahead without making washington's bridge officers fully aware of her intentions in the darkness the resulting collision smashed in washington's bow and sheared a large chunk of indiana's armor off with both ships headed for the dockyard for extensive repairs lee transferred to the north carolina getting back in the theater in time for the raid on truck and the attack on the marshall islands during which time he took passage on iowa to witness the newest u.s navy battleships cut loose in shore bombardment duties at the end of march lee got a promotion to vice admiral the first in almost his entire career that wasn't actually backdated and the next month as everything was redesignated lee got command of task group 58.1 consisting of six fast battleships 13 cruisers and 22 destroyers which was more surface combat power than the entire united states navy had possessed in the entire pacific operational theater in the dark days of late 1942 he took this force to bombard the caroline islands still commanding from the north carolina whilst also taking the time to visit various islands after their invasion to collect seashells several crates of which were shipped home to his wife in may there was a brief stint aboard the new jersey until at the end of the month washington reappeared with a brand new shiny bow and lee almost immediately moved back home the invasion shore bombardments and escort missions went on and lee would get a chance to engage the japanese surface fleet in the run-up to the battle of the philippine sea as an idea was floated to have the u.s fast battleships run at night and attack the japanese fleet despite his success at guadalcanal lee declined the opportunity as he didn't feel that most of his ships had enough night fighting training and didn't want to unnecessarily risk thousands of lives in an environment where one lucky spread from a japanese destroyer could unmake a fast battleship as it turned out the engagement became the great marianas turkey shoot anyway and the battleships had plenty of aerial targets to shoot at instead later that year of course came the battle of leyte golf lee was fairly certain that karita's forces would show up in the san bernardino strait and he made repeated signals to that effect but a combination of an overly important feeling staff aboard the uss new jersey that kept most of those signals from halsey plus halls his own single-minded determination to the signals he did receive meant that unless he was willing to act in complete insubordination to his commanding officer lee had to tag along for the ride north and endure the increasingly frantic messages coming from admiral kincaid and the taffy forces as karita's forces charged in the next morning first is task force 34 guarding the san bernardino strait then urgently need fast battleships leyte golf at once then our cves are being attacked by four bbs eight cruisers plus others request lee cover later at top speed request fast carriers make immediate strike and then the final plea from king cade was a desperate one he sent in plain language rather than even bothering to take the time to encode it where is lee send lee this last prompted admiral nimitz to take the unusual step of contacting his commanders in the field with a famous message that thanks to an error in decoding red where is repeat where is task force 34 the world wonders that finally prompted halsey to order lee to turn about and race south but far too late and ironically doubly deprivingly of another chance at surface action as high above at the time that the ships wheeled about a u.s pilot observed that lee's ships had been less than 30 minutes away from running into the remaining ships of the japanese navy's northern force including the battle carriers issei and hyuga as a result the u.s fast battleships accomplished nothing that day except for steaming up and down the east coast of the philippines much to lee's disappointment in late november lee switched flagships to uss south dakota not by choice but mostly because edward limits told him to where lee got front row seats as halsey's next trick was to sail them all into the heart of a typhoon which blee also warned him about afterwards most of the remaining war for the fast battleships consisted of plugging away incoming japanese aircraft off a variety of islands and the occasional detachment to shore bombardment duty and in april 1945 the yamato the last serious surface combatant threat to american battleships succumbed to carry a born air attack faced with increasing levels of kamikazes lee was concerned that the vt fused five-inch rounds had no self-destruct mechanism which meant that if a round was fired and missed its target then if it fell back to earth in the path of another american ship of which there were quite a few by this point the fuse would activate and then spray the friendly vessel with blast and fragments lee sent a message to the bureau of ordnance asking for a similarly timed self-destruct unit to those that were already fitted in 20 millimeter and 40 millimeter cannon shells the bureau of ordinance replied that they had no immediate plans for such a thing a lee counted with a message stating that their previous answer was not acceptable and also supplied a solution that he'd devised while he'd been waiting for their initial response south dakota underwent a brief overhaul in may and during this time lee learned that his time of command at sea was soon to be over there just weren't any other japanese battleships left operational to fight even if a handful isse hugo and nagato were still technically afloat somewhere in japanese harbours and with increasing casualties suffered from kamikaze attacks lee was wanted back home to devise countermeasures over the course of late june lee shaped a course for the continental united states a place that he hadn't been since early 1942 and then got stuck into a wide variety of new anti-aircraft measures some of which would make it to the fleet before the wars end others would have to wait until after the war to be implemented but the war itself was now coming to an end quite rapidly news of the atomic bombs made that pretty much certain and the us navy was already winding down its continental united states operations over the course of august even before the surrender ceremony had actually happened still even as his staff diminished lee headed for work each day until on the 25th of august 1945 he boarded a boat to take him out to one of the destroyers conducting the experimental work shortly after it got underway he collapsed the boat immediately headed for the nearest available ship but despite it only taking minutes to get there by the time it arrived lee was already dead victim of a massive heart attack three days later he was buried with full honours at arlington but his legacy would live on his habit of finding some of the most able officers in the fleet and bringing them onto his staff would see an unusually high number of them reach flag rank and a new large destroyer was named in his honor the uss willis a lee dl4 which would serve the united states for almost two decades before retiring from the fleet in 1969 lee remains perhaps the finest battleship admiral that the u.s navy ever produced and yen in the estimation of many who served with him also one of the finest admirals to ever serve with this video would not have been possible without the kind assistance of the us naval institute press who sent me a release copy of paul stillwell's new book battleship commander the life of vice admiral willis a lee jr this superbly research book sheds a lot of new light on one of the us navy's finest officers and contains infinitely more detail than could ever be supplied by way of a video presentation like this i highly recommend it for any student of naval history and indeed a lot of the accounts that you've heard in this video are found in that book along with many many others if you'd like to get a copy direct from the us navy institute you'll be glad to know that the code drak drach will now grant you 25 off all naval institute press titles although at the time of release of this video there's a holiday sale on till the end of the year which will give you a blanket 50 percent off any purchases and those two codes don't actually combine but it's worth keeping in mind if you want to buy book in 2022 that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 535,147

Keywords: wows, world of warships, Admiral Lee, Ching Lee, USS Washington, USS South Dakota, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, USNI, USS Concord, WW2, Pacific War, Battle of Samar, Battle of Leyte Gulf

Id: 58lfaMFUQc0

Length: 48min 27sec (2907 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021