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UNITED CHINA RELIEF
SPEAKERS BUREAU
1790 BROADWAY
NEW YORK 19, NEW YORK
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MISS LEE YA-CHING

Miss Lee Ya-ching is "China's First Lady of the Air", and in this capacity she has flown 50.000 miles to all the major cities of the United States and in Canada speaking in behalf of her besieged people and discussing the place of aviation in China's present war. But although Miss Lee (in China the family precedes the given name) is an expert in all the sciences of aviation, she is completely feminine- a charming beauty with a personality that has won thousands of friends for herself and her country.

Her parents and paternal grandmother were close followers of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China. They actively supported the revolution which established China as a great republic in 1911. Mis Lee was educated in China and later in England. Then she traveled in Italy, France, Switzerland and Russia.

Miss Lee studied flying in Switzerland, and was the first woman of any nationality to receive a pilot license in Geneva. She took advanced training at the Boeing School of Aeronautics in California, and it was while she was on a training flight that she earned membership in the Caterpillar Club. Her instructor started a barrel roll, the young pupil fell out and parachuted into San Francisco Bay where she kept afloat for some time until she was picked up by a Navy Amphibian. This thrilling but harrowing experience in no way lessened her interest in aviation, however, and in 1936, Miss Lee returned to China to become that country's first aviatrix.

The first girl applicant for a pilot's license in China, Miss Lee's adeptness and skill soon convinced officials, and she was honored with a Chinese government pilot license which allowed her to fly all over China. She piloted a government plane throughout China to interest young Chinese in aviation, and was appointed flying instructor at China's first civilian flying school, the Shanghai Municipal Air School. Later she became a co-pilot of China's Southwestern Airline.

Upon resumption of hostilities between China and Japan in 1937, Lee Ya-ching did relief and hospital work in Shanghai