Kate Lee Harris Adams
Kate Lee Harris Adams, also known as Kate Adams, was an American pilot who served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II. She earned veteran status in 1977, and in 2009 she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her service.
She was born Katherine Lee Harris in Durham, North Carolina, on September 5, 1919, to Arthur Miller Harris and Kate Lee Hundley. She finished Durham High School in 1937 and earned a fine arts degree from Duke University in 1941. While at Duke, she took Civilian Pilot Training, becoming one of few women in the program and earning a private pilot’s license.
In 1943 she joined WASP, a civilian group that helped test and ferry aircraft to free male pilots for combat. She trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, and was based at Napier Army Air Base in Dothan, Alabama. She flew planes such as the PT-17, BT-13, AT-6, and P-40, did solo test flights, taught flight cadets, and ferried aircraft between bases.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, she continued flying military planes and trained cadets. Adams later donated her uniform and photographs from WASP to the North Carolina Museum of History.
She married Lt. Robert Adams. They lived in Kansas City for eight years, then Houston for fifty-four years. She remained active in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. After her husband’s death in 1999, she moved back to Durham and traveled to China as part of one of the first tour groups allowed in after Communist rule.
Adams died on December 2, 2002, at the Croasdaile Methodist Retirement Home in Durham. Her funeral was held at Trinity United Methodist Church, and she is buried in Maplewood Cemetery. She and other WASP members were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal for their World War II service.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 22:34 (CET).