{"id":622,"date":"2011-10-16T20:07:15","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T03:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ccmm.sodadesign.com\/?page_id=622"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T01:31:20","slug":"monty-lee","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/veteran-stories\/air-force\/monty-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"Monty Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monty Monying Lee was born March 17, 1923 and raised in Vancouver’s Chinatown at a time when Chinese born in Canada were denied the right to vote. He was the eldest son of a vegetable pedlar,\u00a0Kum Shing (Sam)\u00a0and his wife Kwok See Lee.<\/p>\n

He was initially rejected by the RCAF when he tried to sign up. But eventually, the race restriction was lifted and in September 1941 Monty began training with the Air Force.<\/p>\n

He went on to specialize as a bomb aimer and flew\u00a0in a variety of bombers including\u00a0the four-engine\u00a0Halifax bomber.<\/p>\n

\"Monty<\/a>

Monty Lee in his Mae West<\/p><\/div>\n

Monty\u00a0was assigned to coastal patrol and was stationed out of Labrador.\u00a0He spent hundreds of hours flying up and down the eastern coastline looking for German U-boats while\u00a0accompanying merchant marine convoys out to sea.<\/p>\n

His efforts enabled hundreds of ships to carry vital supplies from Halifax to war-ravaged Great Britain.<\/p>\n

Monty was an active member of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum up until the very end of his life.\u00a0Sadly, he died on December 4, 2019 at age 96.<\/p>\n

\"Monty<\/a>

Monty Lee in his heated flight suit<\/p><\/div>\n

Watch<\/a> Monty describe his experiences to his\u00a0grandson in 2014.<\/p>\n

Check out Monty’s interview for the Memory Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Check out a Summer 2017 interview<\/a> with Monty.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monty Monying Lee was born March 17, 1923 and raised in Vancouver’s Chinatown at a time when Chinese born in Canada were denied the right to vote. He was the eldest son of a vegetable pedlar,\u00a0Kum Shing (Sam)\u00a0and his wife Kwok See Lee. He was initially rejected by the RCAF when he tried to sign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1035,"parent":378,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-nosidebar.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-622","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t