The unofficial frantic stamp in US Navy procurement

Was there a Ching Lee story about inventing a new frantic priority stamp for naval procurement?

Yes. His unofficial stamp was mistaken for an authorized top priority and caused marked work to be handled first.

The anecdote begins with a formal three-tier system for prioritizing US Navy development work. Frustrated that his requests kept being displaced, Willis Ching Lee introduced a new label, frantic. Because personnel assumed it was an approved priority, items carrying the stamp moved to the top of the queue. The story illustrates how informal signals and organizational assumptions can redirect procurement even without a formal policy change.