Edwin Earl Ellis (August 28, 1924 - April 2, 1989) was an American inventor and photographer.

Life

He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1949 as a photographer. During this time he participated in the landings at the

Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa Island, Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War, Impe ...

. Most notably, he was a photographer on

Operation Highjump Operation HIGHJUMP, officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946–1947, (also called Task Force 68), was a United States Navy (USN) operation to establish the Antarctic research base Little America (exploration b ...

, becoming one of the first people to visually document Antarctica. The Ellis Fjord and the

Ellis Glacier Ellis Glacier () is a glacier, long, flowing north from Mount Walnum between Gillock Glacier and Jennings Glacier in the Sør Rondane Mountains of Antarctica. It was mapped by Norwegian cartographers in 1957 from air photos taken by U.S. Navy ...

are named after him. After the South Pole, he went to Norfolk, and was part of the crew that commissioned the

USS Coral Sea (CV-43) USS ''Coral Sea'' (CV/CVB/CVA-43), a , was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Battle of the Coral Sea. She earned the affectionate nickname "''Ageless Warrior''" through her long career. Initially classified as an air ...

. He was also the founder of the Ellis Trailer Park in Paducah. The land it sat on is now owned by Cardinal Lanes.

Inventor

As an inventor he holds a patent for an awning support system.

Personal life

On August 16, 1947, he married Stella Beatrice Ellis (née Irby). The couple had their first child, Edwin "Ed" Earl Ellis, Jr., on May 25, 1954. Two other children followed: Linda Elaine Johnson (née) Ellis on July 13, 1959, and Donald Wayne Ellis on August 5, 1960. He died April 2, 1989, in

Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a List of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in the Upland South, and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. The most populous city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located in the Southeastern Unit ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Edwin E. 1924 births 1989 deaths 20th-century American photographers 20th-century American inventors United States Navy personnel of World War II