Montgomery McKee was born on September 29, 1904, in Indiana. He was the son of Joseph Albert McKee and Lillie Stegman McKee. He was first married to Berenice Austin Holmes and later to Evadne Butler McKee. He graduated from Jeffersonville High School in 1922 and from the US Military Academy in West Point in 1927. He served in the 31st Infantry Regiment, 31st Philippine Division, as a Lieutenant Colonel during World War II.

LTC McKee was taken prisoner by the Japanese following the fall of the Philippine Islands in 1942 and remained a Prisoner of War. On October 24, 1944, he was among the 1,782 U.S. POWs aboard the Arisan Maru when it was torpedoed by the U.S. submarine USS Shark in the South China Sea, unaware the vessel carried American prisoners. He perished in what became the greatest loss of American life in maritime history.

His name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, weremember.abmc.gov