Simmons, Edwin Howard 1921-2007

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 25, 1921, in Paulsboro, NJ; died of heart failure, May 5, 2007, in Alexandria, VA. Military leader and author. Simmons was a retired brigadier general and director emeritus of the Marine Corps History and Museums who was also well known for writing authoritative military history books. He attended Lehigh University, completing a B.A. in journalism and graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Simmons joined the Marine Corps that year as a second lieutenant. He served in the South Pacific, seeing action in Guam. After World War II, Simmons was managing editor of the Marine Corps Gazette. In 1950, he was a commander during the Korean War, participating in the Inchon landing and Chosin Reservoir campaign and witnessing some of that war's most brutal battles. Returning home, Simmons went back to school and earned a master's degree in journalism in 1955 from Ohio State University. Moving to Washington, DC, he was a logistics planner for the rest of the 1950s, a naval attaché in the Dominican Republic from 1959 to 1960, and senior editor for Marine Corps Schools for the next two years. During the early 1960s, Simmons served as a strategic planner before going on the first of two tours of duty in Vietnam. Between tours, he was deputy fiscal director in Washington. His last tour in Vietnam, in 1970, was as commander of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Brigade. The next year he accepted the job of establishing the Marine Corps History and Museums. It was a challenging task because of the limited budget, but Simmons was up to the job. He retired from active duty as a brigadier general in 1978, but continued to work as the museum director for the Marines as a civilian for the next seventeen years. Simmons was the author of The United States Marines (1974; 4th edition, 2002) and a book about the Korean War, Frozen Chosin: U.S. Marines at the Changjin Reservoir (2002), as well as the war novel Dog Company Six (2001), which was also about Korea. In addition, he contributor many entries to encyclopedias, journals, and other publications. He knew so much about its history that some referred to him as the memory of the Marines.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, May 10, 2007, Section 3, p. 8.

Washington Post, May 9, 2007, p. B7.