Hazel Ying Lee was born on November 24, 1912, in Portland, Oregon, the daughter of Chinese immigrants who ran a restaurant in Old Town Chinatown. Her middle name, Ying, means "hero" in Chinese. It would prove to be a fitting name.

She first fell in love with flying at nineteen after watching a friend's flight lesson at a local airstrip. She had no money for lessons. So she got a job as an elevator operator at a department store and saved every tip until she could afford them. By the time she was twenty she had her pilot's license.

When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, Lee wanted to fight for her ancestral homeland. She traveled to China and attempted to enlist as a military pilot. The Chinese Air Force turned her down, because she was a woman. She ended up flying commercial aircraft instead. In 1937, when Japan bombed Canton, she was there. She escaped to Hong Kong as a war refugee with her mother and sister, then eventually made her way back to the United States.

Back home she heard about the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. She applied immediately. She was accepted into the 4th training class in 1943, becoming the first Chinese American woman ever to fly for the United States military. Out of over 1,000 women who entered the program, Lee was one of approximately 100 who qualified to fly high-powered single-engine fighters. She was considered one of the best pilots in the program. Her colleagues remembered her as fast-talking, hilarious, fearless, and endlessly kind. She used to write her fellow pilots' nicknames in Chinese characters with lipstick on the tails of planes she flew. Her favorite aircraft was the P-51 Mustang.

On one ferrying mission Lee made an emergency landing in a Kansas field. A farmer came at her with a pitchfork, convinced a Japanese pilot was attacking. She had to talk him down by proving she was Chinese American. This was 1944. She was wearing her WASP uniform.

In September 1944, Lee qualified to fly pursuit, the high-powered fighters that most WASP never touched. She became one of the first women to fly fighter aircraft for the United States military. On November 10, 1944, she received orders to ferry a P-63 Kingcobra from the Bell Aircraft factory at Niagara Falls to Great Falls, Montana, the staging base where Soviet female ferry pilots would collect Lend-Lease aircraft and fly them to Russia.

She never made it.

On final approach at Great Falls Army Air Field on November 23, 1944, the pilot above her received a go-around order. His radio was broken. He never heard it. The two aircraft collided in the air. Ground crew pulled Lee from the burning wreckage. Her burns were too severe. Hazel Ying Lee died on November 25, 1944. She was 32 years old. She was the 38th and final WASP to die in service.

Three days later her family in Portland received a second telegram. Her brother Victor, serving with the US Army in France, had been killed in action. The family prepared to bury two of their children.

The US military would not pay to transport Hazel's body home. No military funeral was allowed since the WASP were classified as civilians. Her family bore every expense themselves. When they chose a burial site in a Portland cemetery, the staff informed them that Hazel could not be buried in the white section. Because they were Chinese.

Her sister Florence fought back. Hazel and Victor were buried together on a hill at River View Cemetery, overlooking the Willamette River.

The WASP were disbanded less than a month after Hazel's death. It took 33 years, until 1977, for Congress to grant them military status. In 2010 they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

In English, Hazel's Chinese name, Ying, translates to Hero.