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The passing of <em>Edward Wrenne Timberlake</em>, known as Tim throughout the service broke up a unique act of the three brothers who were general officers during World War II, and a member of a military family which traces its seven generations to service in the American Revolution, and numbers among its sons seven graduates of West Point, all of whom excelled on the playing fields there.</div>
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Tim Timberlake, who in leading his 49th Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Brigade ashore on “D” Day was one of the first American generals on the First Army’s Normandy Beachhead and he did this with the same enthusiasm and drive that he demonstrated as a Plebe lineman for the famous 1914 Army football team. The Timberlake name has gone down in Academy annals since his father, Colonel Edward Julius Timberlake (Class of 1893) excelled on the first West Point team of 1890.</div>
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Like his three brothers, Patrick, Coleman and Edward J., Tim was outstanding in such sports as swimming, baseball, and lacrosse; however, the focus must go to football where they were all stalwarts for the Black Knights. Tim was nominated for the 1919 Walter Camp All-American football team.</div>
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His distinguished career spanning 33 years included service in two world wars and assignment as military attache to Cuba, commanding general of the four nation Ministerial Collecting Center, which was responsible for the establishment of a Nazi-free republic for post-war Germany, and commander of the Military District of Washington’s antiaircraft defenses after Pearl Harbor.</div>
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Early after the Japanese attack on Oahu Tim Timberlake was called to move his highly mechanized 71st Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft) from Fort Story, Virginia, to defend the Nation’s Capital. He commanded the Washington Military District’s AAA defenses which had grown to brigade strength by 1942.</div>
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His early youth was spent on Coast Artillery posts along the Atlantic seaboard and at Fort Carl Ruger, Hawaii, where his father, who commanded the Hawaiian harbor defenses, planned the construction and development of such strategic installations as Forts De Russey, Ruger and Kamehameha.</div>
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After graduating from West Point in August 1917 as an Infantry first lieutenant, Edward Timberlake was assigned to Fort Snelling, Minnesota as a company officer. By September 1918 he was stationed at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, with the 7th Infantry Regiment, transferring overseas to the Army of Occupation later that year. As a young captain, he commanded the mighty Ehrenbreitstein Festung overlooking the Rhine at Koblentz.</div>
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By 1922 Edward had transferred from the Infantry to the Coast Artillery and had assumed command of Battery “C,” 62d Coast Artillery at Fort Totten, New York, where he played an active role in the development of the antiaircraft arm of the Coast Artillery Corps. The historic quarters assigned to his family were the same quarters General William T. Sherman lived in after he graduated from West Point in 1840.</div>
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Fort Hancock, at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, was his next post and his new command was Battery “A,” 7th Coast Artillery, whose 12" disappearing guns controlled the sea-approaches to New York harbor.</div>
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A four-year assignment began in 1927 as an instructor for the Department of Tactics, United States Military Academy; during this time he assisted Coaches Biff Jones and Ralph Sasse with the Black Knight football team, and coached the “Goat” team of gridders. One of his cadets who later became an Air Force lieutenant general, was his brother, Edward J. “Ted” Timberlake, Jr., (Class of 1931).</div>
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Completing the Student Officer Advanced Course of the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1932, Edward next commanded Battery “G” 64 Coast Artillery Corps at Fort Shaffer, Territory of Hawaii. His artillerymen dueled Captain Oliver Bucher's AAA unit for the Knox Trophy the following year. He later commanded the 2d Battalion of the 64th Coast Artillery,</div>
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By 1936 Edward Timberlake had completed his studies at the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with such classmates as Hoyt Vandenberg and Carl Spaatz, and this was followed hy his assignment as Executive Officer of the 61st Coast Artillery, Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was promoted to major, Coast Artillery Corps, in July, 1936.</div>
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Selected to be Military Attache to Cuba in February 1937, and during the 18 months he served in that post, he developed a dose working relationship with Colonel Fulgeneia Batista, ffie former Cuban president.</div>
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Edward Timberlake served as Assistant Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Illinois from August 1938 to July 1940, when he took command of the 71st Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft) at Fort Story, Virginia, and the next month pinned on his lieutenant colonel’s leaves.</div>
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From September 1940 to May 1941 he was Executive Officer of the 71st Coast Artillery before becoming its commanding officer in May of that year. The “Rollin’ Seventy First” one of the few completely mechanized AAA regiments in the United States at that time, quickly established a name for itself through maneuvers up and down the eastern coast in 36 exercises from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and marches over 12,000 miles over and under all types of terrain and weather during a period of 147 days in the field.</div>
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In response to General George C. Marshall’s urgent call, Edward Timberlake moved his 71st Regiment to Washington shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941. With the addition of the 89th Coast Artillery Regiment, the AAA defenders of the Military District of Washington became the 36th AAA Brigade.</div>
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He was promoted to Colonel in February 1942, and in addition to commanding the 36th AAA Brigade assumed command of the AAA Command, Military District of Washington in October 1942.</div>
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He was among the first to recognize the need for women in the Armed Forces. He utilized them in his command posts at Bolling Air Force Base and at the Washington International Airport at plotting boards, and through verbal instruction from General Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, formed the first all-women combat unit in American history. This was Battery “X” of the 1st Battalion, 89th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft). This 90mm gun battery conducted live target practice at Bethany Beach, Delaware 29-30 April 1943, Two of the four courses fired for the Battery X record were completed with the female range crew. The riddled red target towed by an obsolete B-10 bomber witb a clipped cable, was later recovered from the ocean,</div>
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By 1 December 1942 the 49th AAA Brigade was activated at Fort Davis, North Carolina, This was to be the crack unit Edward Timberlake would lead into combat after he assumed command of the 49ers in June 1943 and pinned on his brigadier general’s stars.</div>
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He led his brigade to England in November 1943, and took over control of the Bland-ford AAA Training Camp where his artillerymen trained both American and British troops for the forthcoming invasion of Europe. The 11th British AAA Brigade worked with the 49th Brigade to provide this training.</div>
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As part of the First Army’s antiaircraft cover, the 49th Brigade stormed ashore on 6 June 1944 on Omaha Beach, and played an aggressive anti-tank, counter battery, antibunker as well as air defense role in First Army’s march to Paris.</div>
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Edward Timberlake established his brigade headquarters at the Cite Univcrsitaire in Paris on 29 August 1944, and the brigade assumed control of the air defenses of Paris and the Seine River crossings.</div>
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The more than fifty 99mm and 40mm automatic weapons battalions stubbornly held the line during the Ardennes Campaign and Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. In addition to defending against the new German ME 202 jet fighter, the 49ers shot down numerous V-l buzz bombs headed for England. The deadly 90mm guns of the brigade blunted the armored thrusts of the German Sixth Panzer Army during the Bulge.</div>
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Later in the spring of 1945, the brigade established an intensive field of fire in protecting the captured Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen for First Army’s crossing of the Rhine in early March 1945.</div>
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By the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945, the 49th was credited with downing 1271 enemy aircraft in the five major campaigns it waged in the theater. Edward Timberlake shifted his brigade to Camp Mahogony near Kassell, Germany, to begin the operations of the Ministerial Collecting Center with the assistance of British, French and Russian general officers.</div>
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Postwar duties found Edward Timberlake at Utah State Agricultural College as Professor of Military Science and Tactics producing more young officers each year than the Military Academy. His successful Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program at Utah State attracted nationwide interest and by the summer of 1950 TIME-LIFE publications had assigned its crack reporter, Jim Atwater, to prepare an article on Edward Timberlake’s approach to ROTC. In 1950 Edward Timberlake wrote an article for the <em>COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL</em> entitled “The ROTC from A to Z.”</div>
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He retired in August 1950 and remained in Logan, Utah, for a year as the manager of the Cache Chamber of Commerce before his permanent move to Naples, Florida. There he was elected president of the Naples Civic Association and chairman of the Naples Zoning and Planning Board. He was a member of the Retired Officer Association. West Point Alumni Association and the Episcopal Church. He was director of the Logan Kiwanis, and 1st Vice President of the Disabled American Veterans in Logan.</div>
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Born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 3 January 1895, the first of four sons of Colonel and Mrs. Edward J. (Augusta Wrenne), Timberlake, he is survived by his wife, Alice O’Leary Timberlake, whom he married in November 1939, and by his children, Pierce Wrenne Timberlake, Stuart Timberlake, Edward Wrenne Timberlake Jr., and Alice Lee Timberlake. Other survivors include his brothers, Lieutenant General Patrick W. Timberlake, United States Military Academy Class of 1923; and Lieutenant General Edward J. Timberlake, United States Military Academy Class of 1931. He had ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.</div>
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Edward Timberlake held the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, the Purple Heart, European Theater Ribbon with five battle stars in addition to such foreign decorations as Chevalier of Legion of Honor (France), Croix de Guerre w/Palm (France). Order of Leopold I, Croix de Guerre (Belgium) Military Cross (Cuba) the British Military Order, and a decoration from the Haitian government.</div>