WW2 US Navy Admiral’s uniform peaked cap, belong to Vice Admiral Willis Augustus ‘Ching’ Lee, who as commander of Composite Task Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, died just 10 days after the official Japanese surrender. Lee was most famous for being the commander in charge of the naval fleet which repelled the Japanese naval attack on Guadalcanal in November 1942, as well as being a skilled sport shooter, winning seven medals at the 1920 Olympic Games, being the most successful athlete of the entire games.The cap features a tan waterproof body, with black woven centre band, with U.S.N. 2-piece eagle, service worn gold braid chinstrap & twin gilt buttons, with a double row of bullion oak leaves embroidered direct woven to the black felt top of the flat leather peak. The interior shows the maker details for Art Caps of New York, with clear protective cover, showing his name Lee, Willis A BB-56, mid brown leather sweatband, gilt embossed named W. A. LEE. Light wear to underside of crown, but in overall very good condition, approx. size 6 1/2.Willis Augustus ‘Ching’ Lee Jr. (May 11, 1888 – August 25, 1945) entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1904. While at the Naval academy, his Chinese-sounding last name, compounded by his fondness for the Far East earned him the nickname "Ching" Lee. Following graduation, Lee joined the academy's rifle team twice. He was assigned to the battleship Idaho from October 1908 to May 1909, before returning to the naval academy and re-joining the rifle team. In July 1913, Lee re-joined Idaho, and in April 1914 he transferred to the battleship New Hampshire to participate in the occupation of Veracruz. During World War I, Lee served on the destroyers O'Brien and Lea.Lee participated in 14 events at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. He won 7 medals (5 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze), all in team events. It would not be until Alexander Dityatin in the 1980 games that anyone would beat the record. Lee attended the Naval War College in the late 1920s, and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1936. During the 1930s and early 1940s, Lee was several times assigned to the Fleet Training Division, commanded the light cruiser Concord, and served on the staff of Commander, Cruisers, Battle Force. In early 1942, following his promotion to the rank of rear admiral, Lee became Assistant Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet.Lee's specialty in life was gunnery. At the age of 19 in 1907 "he became the only American to win both the US National High Power Rifle and Pistol championships in the same year." In 1914 during the Veracruz campaign in Mexico he drew the fire of three enemy snipers, thereby exposing their positions and then shot them at long range. He understood the powerful guns of a battleship as an extension of the law of ballistics and adapted his expertise to the new age of technology. When Admiral Lee engaged the Japanese Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondō's battleship Kirishima on the evening of 14 November 1942 in the waters off Guadalcanal, he became naval history's first battleship commander to conduct a "gunfight" primarily by radar remote control. In August 1942, Rear Admiral Lee was sent to the Pacific to command Battleship Division Six, consisting of the battleships Washington and South Dakota. Flying his flag in Washington, Lee engaged an Imperial Japanese Navy surface fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Kondō during the second night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of 14–15 November 1942. While riding in the battleship Washington, which served as his flagship during this sea-fight, Lee's battleship decisively gunned the battleship Kirishima into a wreck, resulting in her scuttling shortly afterwards. With 300 Imperial sailors still entombed within her hull, she slid into Ironbottom Sound, leaving Admiral Lee's flagship Washington the only American battleship during World War II to sink an enemy battleship in a "one on one" gunfight.[10]Lee, who "knew more about radar than the radar operators", used the SG radar installed aboard Washington to skilfully manoeuvre his ships during the night.Lee was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at the battle, promoted to Vice Admiral in 1944 and placed in charge of the Pacific Fleet's fast battleships, as Commander, Battleships, Pacific Fleet. In May 1945, he was sent to the Atlantic to command a special unit researching defences against the threat of Japanese kamikaze aircraft, the Composite Task Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. While serving in that position on 25 August 1945, Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee died suddenly after suffering a heart attack, ten days after the Surrender of Japan. He collapsed and died in a motor launch that was ferrying him out to his flagship in the harbour at Portland, Maine.
