Lee Embree - Later Life

Later Life

Embree enlisted in the Air Force Reserve in 1945. He officially retired as a major from the military in 1957. He and his family lived and worked in Southern California for many years. Embree moved to Port Angeles, Washington, in 1988.

Embree continued working in photography after he left the U.S. military in 1957. He continued snapping his trademark aerial photographs as late as 2003, when he documented the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard as well as the celebrations for the Port Angeles Fourth of July festivities.

Embree was interviewed in 2003 by a production crew for the Discovery Channel for a documentary on the Pearl Harbor attacks. He also appeared in the KCTS series Stories of the Northwest in 2007. The locally produced series, which focused on the lives of World War II veterans in the Pacific Northwest, was aired as a complement to PBS' The War.

He actually outlived the local Juan de Fuca Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. The Juan de Fuca Chapter was formed in 1991, fifty years after the attack, but disbanded in 2004 due to the deaths of members from old age.

Embree's photographs, as well as his Speed Graphic camera, goggles and dog tags, were placed on display at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, in 2007.