The funeral was more a memorial service, but this man was so special, I just had to share his story with everyone else. Apparently, he was something else in China when he was younger. There were flowers everywhere sent from people. I've never seen so many flowers at a funeral. We had to go up and bow at the casket. The President of Taiwan sent a special flag with Mandarin written on it to be hung over the casket and he also sent a representative of Taiwan who resides in Washington D.C. (Maj. Gen. Hsien-Sheng Li) to be present. There was a flag ceremony with Taiwan's flag. You have to understand, he was a General in China, but he became Taiwanese when China became communist. The stories everyone was sharing were just amazing and touching, so much so that I found myself crying buckets over a guy I had never met. Here's his story. I thought you might find it interesting to read.
Lt. Gen. (retired) Hsueh Yen Lee, was born into a rural merchant
family of Hakka descent in Meshian, Kwongdong Province in southern China. He was the third of five sons. When he was fifteen, he escaped
apprenticeship as a tailor and went to Nanking to attend high school supported
by his eldest brother, a military officer in the Nationalist Army. He was accepted into the Central Aviation
Academy and became a Chinese Air Force pilot in 1934. In Kunming in 1938, he married Tzu-Ching
Chang.
From 1937-1945, he was a bomber pilot fighting against the
invading Japanese forces during World War II.
In 1943, as the commander of the first bomber group of the Flying
Tigers, he led the successful bombing of the Japanese-held air field in
Hsinchu, Taiwan. As a highly decorated
flyer, he flew over one hundred-fifty missions during his Air Force career and
survived two airplane crashes. He went
on to become a senior Air Force officer in China and then in Taiwan.
Retired from the Chinese Air Force in Taiwan in 1967 after
serving as the Superintendent of the Air Force Staff College, he began a second
career as a professor in the Chinese Cultural University in Taipei where he
taught history for seventeen years. In
1985, Gen. Lee and his wife moved to the U.S. to be closer to their five
children. Mrs. Lee died in 1988 as a
result of a brain aneurysm. At the age
of ninety, Gen. Lee wrote his autobiography entitled “Blue Sky and Flying
Tigers: Memoir at Ninety.” The book was
recently reprinted in Taiwan as a part of the official celebration of the 70th
anniversary of the Hsinchu bombing.
On Dec. 23, 2013, Gen. Lee suffered a stroke and was
hospitalized. He died of heart failure
in Somerset Medical Center on Feb. 9, 2014 at the age of 103.
Gen. Lee is survived by his five children, Wei-li, Sophie,
Shirley, Margaret, and Andrew, their spouses, and thirteen grandchildren and
five great grandchildren. For the last
twenty five years, he further enhanced the life of his children by living with
each of their families periodically, and became a loving grandfather to all of
his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
