Edward Joseph Tipper Jr. (3 August 1921 – 1 February 2017) was an enlisted man in

Easy Company E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles", is a company in the United States Army. The company was referred to as "Easy" after the radio call for "E" in the ph ...

, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Tipper was one of the 140 original

Toccoa Toccoa is a city in far Northeast Georgia near the border with South Carolina. It is the county seat of Stephens County, Georgia, United States, located about from Athens and about northeast of Atlanta. The population was 9,133 as of the 2020 ...

men of Easy Company. Tipper was portrayed in the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

miniseries '' Band of Brothers'' by

Bart Ruspoli Bartolomeo Sebastian "Bart" Ruspoli (born 8 November 1976 in London) is an Italian and English actor. Career Bart Ruspoli trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where he graduated in 1998. He is also the writer and Producer of t ...

. Information about Tipper was featured in the 2009 book ''

We Who Are Alive and Remain ''We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories from the Band of Brothers'' is a military non-fiction book published in 2009 by Penguin/Berkley-Caliber publishers. Journalist Marcus Brotherton is credited with the book's authorship. Brotherton also ...

''.

Early life

Tipper was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, Michigan on 3 August 1921 to Lucy (McCormick) and Edward Tipper. The family moved back to Ireland when Tipper was three years old, but they returned to the United States later. Tipper graduated from a Detroit school in 1939 and worked at a department store.

Military service

After the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

, Tipper signed up for the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

(USMC), but was rejected because his teeth could not bite together. He therefore volunteered for the paratroopers. He was sent to

Toccoa, Georgia Toccoa is a city in far Northeast Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia near the border with South Carolina. It is the county seat of Stephens County, Georgia, Stephens County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, located about from Athens, Geo ...

, and was assigned to Easy Company for training under Captain

Herbert Sobel Herbert Maxwell Sobel Sr. (26 January 1912 – 30 September 1987) was an American commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Sobel was portraye ...

. During the training in Camp Mackall, Tipper was made Sobel's runner; with his help, "Sobel was able to mislay his maps, compass, and other items when he most needed them." Tipper received further training with Easy Company in

Aldbourne Aldbourne (pronounced "awld·bawn") is a village and civil parish about north-east of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, in a valley on the south slope of the Lambourn Downs – part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. ...

, United Kingdom. Tipper made his first combat jump into

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

, where he met with fellow Easy Company member Frank Mellet and some other paratroopers and engaged in a firefight with a German patrol. Later, the men and other paratroopers attacked the Marmion Farm. The soldiers held the farm before joining their own units. Tipper fought in

Carentan Carentan () is a small rural town near the north-eastern base of the French Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy in north-western France, with a population of about 6,000. It is a former commune in the Manche department. On 1 January 2016, it was merg ...

: after clearing a house, a mortar shell exploded near him when he was standing in the doorway. His right eye was destroyed and his legs were broken. Two other members of E Company dragged Tipper to a nearby aid station. Tipper was sent to a hospital in England, where his right eye was removed. He was then sent back to the United States.

Later life

Tipper was discharged in August 1945 after one year in army hospitals. At first Tipper needed to walk with a cane and wore an

eyepatch An eyepatch is a small patch that is worn in front of one eye. It may be a cloth patch attached around the head by an elastic band or by a string, an adhesive bandage, or a plastic device which is clipped to a pair of glasses. It is often worn ...

. Tipper remembered how everybody wanted to do something to show support for the returning war veterans. For instance, someone would pay his bill for him at a restaurant or there would be no bill at all.Brotherton, Marcus
"When Ed Tipper Came Home from War"
in ''Men Who Lead Well'' Tipper attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and completed his master's degree in English at the

University of Northern Colorado The University of Northern Colorado (UNC) is a public university in Greeley, Colorado. The university was founded in 1889 as the State Normal School of Colorado and has a long history in teacher education. The institution has officially changed ...

, and became a teacher. In 1961 he won the John Hay Fellowship from the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. When Tipper was sixty one, he met Rosie (who was then thirty four) and they were married on 12 February 1983. Their daughter Kerry Christina Tipper was born ten months later. Tipper died on 1 February 2017 at the age of 95.

Medals and decorations

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tipper, Edward 1921 births 2017 deaths American expatriates in Ireland American people of Irish descent Military personnel from Detroit United States Army personnel of World War II Band of Brothers characters University of Michigan alumni University of Northern Colorado alumni American people with disabilities Schoolteachers from Michigan United States Army soldiers