E. Hamilton Lee, the most senior captian at United Air Lines when he left the company after a 36-year aviation career, had amassed an astounding record of 4.4 million air miles flow in 27,812 hours.

An instructor in the flying division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I, Lee joined the U.S. Air Mail Service Division of the U.S. Post Office Department after leaving the military.

He and another pilot precipitated the nation's first strike when they refused to fly a trip because of what they deemed non-flyable weather. When the postal superintendent fired them, the rest of the pilots walked off their jobs, returning only after local station managers were allowed to cancel flights during inclement weather, with input from the pilots.

When the Post Office Department stopped flying the mail in 1927, Lee was hired by Boeing Air Transport, which eventually merged with other carriers in 1934 to become United Air Lines.