Born in 1896, Lee was initially educated at
Clifton College. He saw service in the
First World War, where he was
commissioned as an officer into the
South Staffordshire Regiment of the
British Army in 1914. This was followed by seeing active service on the
Western Front, where he was awarded the
Military Cross in 1915, and
mentioned in despatches six times throughout the war. Remaining in the army during the
interwar period, Lee received a promotion to
captain in 1923 and went to
India where he attended the
Staff College, Quetta, from 1926 to 1927. After this, he went to England to serve as an instructor at the
Staff College, Camberley, for the next four years. In 1937 he transferred to the
Royal Irish Fusiliers and, two years later, received a promotion to
colonel and experienced the death of his wife. Lee served in the
Second World War, initially as a
staff officer with General Headquarters of the
British Expeditionary Force in France, for which he was mentioned in despatches another time. After serving from late to 1940 until 1942 in the
War Office in London as deputy director of Staff Duties, Lee, by now a
brigadier, took command of the
44th (Home Counties) Division's
133rd Infantry Brigade until it was disbanded in 1943. In 1944 he was sent to India where he was major-general in command of Formation Training until later that year when he was sent to the United States to be Deputy Head of the British Army Staff in Washington, D.C. Lee remained in this post until 1947, during which time he also served as
aide-de-camp to the
King, until he retired from the army, and was remarried, that same year, after well over thirty years of service. From 1954 to 1959 he was Colonel Commandant of his old regiment, the South Staffords, as well as Colonel of the
Staffordshire Regiment, formed by the merger of the South Staffords with the
North Staffordshire Regiment, from 1959 to 1961. In addition to being a keen sportsman, he also wrote pieces for the
Encyclopædia Britannica and married again, for the third time, in 1970. ==References==