William G. Lee

United States navy 1959-1962

machinist mate second class

uss intrepid

Born in 1941, William G. Lee grew up in Rocky Hill and spent his summers in Hydeville, VT exploring and fishing every cove of Lake Bomoseen. He graduated from Wethersfield High School in 1959 and reported for US Navy bootcamp that autumn. He was assigned to the storied Essex Class aircraft carrier, the USS Intrepid as a boilermaker.

In the early 1960s with 3,440 crew aboard, a boilermaker on Intrepid worked in the ship’s sweltering, noisy engine rooms maintaining the 8 massive steam-generating boilers that propelled Intrepid’s engines, generated her electricity, and powered the aircraft-launching catapults on the carrier’s flight deck. Designated CVA-11, an Attack Carrier, when the ship left Norfolk in 1960, Lee was part of the Intrepid’s transition to the CVS-11 designation in 1962 for Intrepid’s critical new Cold War missions at the head of America’s antisubmarine warfare operations. Lee saw two full Mediterranean and Caribbean tours of duty with stops at 23 ports of 16 different nations of Europe, Asia and the West Indies.

Notable, in May 1962, was Intrepid’s role recovering astronaut Malcolm Carpenter soon after he became the second American to orbit Earth. Carpenter’s Project Mercury space capsule, Aurora 7, splashed down into the Caribbean some 250 miles off course. Helicopters from Intrepid rescued Carpenter and returned him safely to the ship where the space-traveler was greeted with a rousing hero’s welcome from all aboard.

Honorably discharged in 1963, Lee took his skills to Pratt & Whitney’s Wilgoos Lab in East Hartford where he remained for his entire career. In 1965 Lee wed Geraldine Gunning from Hartford. Together, Bill and Gerry set up a happy home in Enfield where their kids, Billy, Michael and Jen thrived, always enjoying their dad’s stories and slides depicting his proud service and adventures at sea aboard America’s “Fighting I".