World War II veteran Ivan Lee / Denise Goolsby, The Desert Sun
World War II veteran Ivan Lee / Provided photo
IVAN LEE
Age: 87
Born: Oct. 6, 1922
Hometown: Santa Ana
Residence: La Quinta
Military branch: U.S. Navy
Years served: Dec. 8, 1941- Fall 1945
Rank: Lieutenant
Family: Wife Darlene; four children, Claudia Ainsworth of Philadelphia, Brad Lee of Bermuda Dunes, Brian Lee of Carlsbad and Kristin Roberts of Annapolis, Md.; six grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army physician Dr. Paul Stoddard of Palm Springs
LEARN MORE
Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii
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Naval aviator Ivan Lee chased German submarines all over the Atlantic Ocean, dropping depth charges from PB4Y Consolidated Liberators — called B-24s by the U.S. Army Air Corps — in an effort to destroy the torpedo-toting underwater menace.
Lee was not immediately enamored with the assignment.
“I wanted to be a carrier pilot,” he said.
Flying fighter planes off the rocking, roiling decks of aircraft carriers was more appealing to the young aviator.
Lee graduated from Tustin High School in 1940 and was attending Santa Ana Junior College when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Dec. 8, 1941 — the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
He said his parents were pacifists and weren't immediately supportive of their son's decision to enter the fight.
“They still had memories of World War I,” he said. “They didn't want me to go in.”
But he needed their signatures, so he threatened to go up to Canada and join.
“They signed,” he said.
After Lee earned his wings in Corpus Christi, Texas, an admiral asked for volunteers to train in a new, twin-engine fighter plane the Navy was developing.
Lee accepted the challenge, and after attending his final fighter training in Florida, he was ordered to Norfolk, Va.
“German subs were wrecking our shipping (operations),” he said.
German submarines — also called U-boats — were sinking American ships near the Atlantic coast.
The ships — set ablaze by enemy torpedo fire — could be seen at night, he said.
Few people were aware a battle was going on so close to American soil.
“They didn't tell the public,” Lee said.
Instead of flying the nimble fighter planes, Lee would be assigned to patrol the high seas from behind the controls of a massive Liberator aircraft.
When Lee and other pilots learned they'd be flying the big bombers on these search-and-destroy missions, they were disappointed and concerned.
“We were depressed,” he said. “We didn't like that concept ... long-range, four-engine bombers were not suited to land at sea.”
If a pilot tried to ditch the aircraft in the event of an emergency or attack, once the bulky bomber hit the water, the fragile fuselage would break — sending water up into the aircraft — drowning all aboard.
At Norfolk, Lee was assigned to fly with VP-107 squadron and, after training along the East Coast for several months, the squadron was sent to a base in Recifi, Brazil.
“We continued anti-sub warfare against the U-boats along the coast — they were having a field day there until we arrived,” Lee said.
“Those U-boat guys were really brave,” he said, adding that one U-boat even ventured into the harbor in New Orleans, La.
The German subs eventually retreated to other parts of the Atlantic.
To keep tabs on their activity, the 15-aircraft squadron would fly three-plane patrol sweeps — from Recifi to Ascension Island — 1,280 nautical miles away.
Flying across such a wide expanse of ocean was a risky proposition for the crews.
“If anything happened to the aircraft, you were gone,” Lee said.
“We tried to keep a visual,” on the subs, he said. “A lot of kills occurred in the south Atlantic.”
Lee said the aircraft , flying about 240 mph, would go into a dive when it spotted a U-boat.
“We tried to hide in the clouds as long as we could,” then dive down to 25 feet above the water.
“Depth charges were set to go off at 25 feet,” under the water. “We tried to straddle the submarine and drop a depth charge on each side.”
Lee was involved in seven submarine “kills.”
After patrolling the north and south Atlantic for about a year, the men were reassigned to England.
Flying from a base in Dunkeswell, the squadron maintained a blockade in the Bay of Biscay.
“Once the war ended in Europe, I was reassigned to Norfolk, Va.,” he said. “I was asked what I wanted to do, and I said ‘Get back into flying fighters.'”
Lee was sent to San Diego where he finally got the opportunity to train to become an aircraft-carrier pilot — for upcoming operations in the Pacific Ocean.
“We were scheduled to photograph the invasion of Japan,” he said.
From Hawaii, “We started on our way to Japan. We had a big celebration when they dropped the first atomic bomb. We knew few of us would survive photographing the mainland of Japan,” during the invasion.
“I'm a great believer in the dropping of the atom bomb, which forced Japan to surrender,” he said. “Most of them would rather die than give up.”
After wrapping up his military career soon after the war ended, he returned to college.
Lee graduated in 1951 from the University of California Dental School in San Francisco, launching a 55-year career as an orthodontist.
Lee worked in La Jolla before moving his practice to Palm Desert in 1986.
He retired in 2006, but stays active jogging and playing golf.
