Vandals in North Carolina who set fire to a WWII statue appear to have mistaken the war hero for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
A white marble monument of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William C. Lee, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division’s “Screaming Eagles” during World War II, was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire last week, museum officials said. The statue bears black scorch marks running up its left side.
The suspects seem to have confused Lee with Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate army during the Civil War some 80 years earlier, officials said.
“I was surprised that anybody would do that to this museum statue,” Mark Johnson, curator of the General William C. Lee Airborne Museum, told Goldsboro’s WNCN-TV. “This is not a Civil War museum and this is not Robert E. Lee.”
The statue will be cleaned and repaired. Authorities are urging anyone with information about the vandalism to call 910-892-2222 and are offering a $1,000 reward.
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