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<em>Robert Vernon Lee</em>, known as “Pete” to all his friends and to everyone in the service, was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina and was appointed to West Point from the First District of Virginia.</p>
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He was graduated from high school at the age of 15, and being too young for an appointment to West Point or to enter the Virginia Military Institute, he took a job with the government auditors at Langley Field which was then being built. The following year he went to V.M.I. and while there won a competitive examination for appointment to West Point, which he entered with the Class of 1924 in July of 1920. It was at V.M.I. that he acquired the nickname of Peter from a Chinese from Peking named Peter Lee who was there at the time. Starting off as Peter it eventually degenerated into Pete.</p>
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At the Academy Pete made an enviable record. He was the senior corporal his yearling year, senior supply sergeant the second class year, and first captain his first class year. He ranked number one in military efficiency and his graduation standing was number 5 in a class of 406.</p>
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During yearling summer he met Barbara Burgess, sister of his classmate, Henry C. Burgess, and daughter of Colonel Louis Ray Burgess, Class of 1892, and nine days later they were engaged. He wanted to give his fiancée a miniature but the class had not yet adopted a class seal. Nothing daunted, he told the jeweler to put the Academy seal on both sides of the ring. The first 1924 miniature to be cast, therefore, does not bear the class seal. The engagement survived three long years, and he and Bobbie were married on graduation day</p>
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The Army at that time was at a very low ebb with very slow promotion. Pete resigned his commission in December 1926 and entered business in New York. At the same time he joined the New York National Guard as a second lieutenant. The following year he was promoted to first lieutenant and the next year to captain. He was made a lieutenant colonel in 1940 and placed in command of the 212th Coast Artillery (Anti-Aircraft) which was then being readied for induction into federal service. On induction, in February 1941, Pete took the regiment to Camp Stewart, Georgia.</p>
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A few months later he was ordered to the Command and General Staff School and on graduation was assigned to Governors Island as deputy G-l of Eastern Defense Command and First Army. The Eastern Defense Command covered the area from Newfoundland to Florida and included Bermuda. In 1942 Pete was promoted to colonel. The following year First Army Headquarters was sent to England and Pete remained as G-l of EDC. The next year he was ordered overseas and assigned as G-l of V Corps. The mission of the Corps was to make the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy.</p>
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Pete went in on D-Day. His landing craft hit an obstruction in approaching the beach, was immobilized, and immediately drew fire from a German 88mm battery. All aboard, except for a few casualties including the Coast Guard skipper, took to the water and swam the last hundred yards to Europe.</p>
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Pete remained with V Corps throughout the Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, and Ardennes Campaigns. During this period the Corps, after assaulting Omaha Beach, fought through the Normandy hedgerows to St. Lo, to the breakout at Vire, swung east to close the Falaise Gap, liberated Paris and Luxembourg City, breached the Siegfried Line and were the first Allied troops to enter Germany, and held the vital Monchau corner during the Battle of the Bulge. After the Bulge, Pete was assigned to Fifteenth Army and served as deputy chief of staff.</p>
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He was recommissioned in the Regular Army in July 1946 and assigned to the War Department General Staff. Following that duty he attended the National War College from which he was graduated in 1948. He then served with the U.S. Army Caribbean and in 1950 was assigned as a member of the original faculty of the reestablished Army War College where he served as one of three faculty group directors and was responsible for a third of the curriculum.</p>
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He was then assigned to the Adjutant General’s Office. (He had transferred to the Adjutant General’s Corps in 1947.) Promoted to brigadier general, he headed the personnel division in that office. The following year he became director of the J-l Division of the U.S. European Command in Paris. After fifteen months he was promoted to major general and recalled to the Pentagon to be deputy to the Adjutant General. His last three years of active duty were as the Adjutant General of the Army. He was retired on 1 October 1961.</p>
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His decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Bronze Star Medal, Commendation Medal, Legion of Honor (France), Croix de Guerre with Palm (France), Order of Leopold (Officer) with Gold Palm (Belgium), and Croix de Guerre with Palm (Belgium).</p>
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Several years after retirement he and Bobbie moved to Williamsburg, Virginia where they were residing at the time of his death. Pete was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendents and was a former vestryman of historic Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg.</p>
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He is survived by his widow, Barbara Burgess Lee; a son, Colonel Robert V. Lee, Jr. (retired), Class of 1946; a daughter, Dr. Jennifer Mary Lee; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.</p>
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<em>Robert V. Lee, Jr.</em></p>