Burton F. Ellis

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Burton French Ellis (born September 13, 1903 in Troy (Idaho) , † December 29, 2000 ) was an American lawyer.

His parents were Remington Peter Ellis (1870-1935) from Iowa and Jennie Prudence Sullivan (1885-1970) from Washington. His older brother was William Barber Ellis (1901–1990). He spent his childhood from 1904 in Lewiston, Idaho; Spokane, Washington; Manchester, Iowa; Humphrey, Idaho and on ranches in Montana.

While in college, he was active in the Reserve Officer Training Corps . From the early 1920s he attended the University of Idaho , where he became a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Brotherhood and worked in the oil fields in California during the semester break. After his Bachelor of Laws in 1929, he completed courses in law and accounting in Los Angeles. Here he married Dee Hoffman (1908-1998) from Kansas City. He worked for the Texas Company from 1929–1942 as a tax attorney and was transferred to New York City in 1938.

He was a member of the National Guard in California and New York City, took military leave in 1942 and joined the Air Corps as 1st Lieutenant. After training, he was relocated to Miami Beach and Atlantic City, where he taught international and military law and was the Assistant Staff Judge Advocate .

As such, he served in 1943/44 with the Army Air Forces at the theater of war China Burma India Theater . After further training in the legal department of the army, he was sent to France and Germany in 1945 with the Army War Crimes Branch (see War Crimes Program ), where he was responsible for all investigation groups active in Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands took over. In 1946 he became Chief Trial Counsel in the Malmedy Trial . He was then transferred to Dachau , where he commanded about 900 employees in the investigation and prosecution of over 1,100 accused of war crimes (separate from the Nuremberg trials). From 1948–1950 he oversaw all military legal activities in eight western states at the Presidio military base in San Francisco.

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was deployed with the 2nd US Infantry Division in Korea, where he supervised all legal activities in the 1st Corps until 1953, including war crimes.

1953–1955 he lived with his wife in Washington DC, where he represented defendants in military court complaints in more than 3,000 cases. He was then transferred to Honolulu and became a Judge Advocate for all activities in Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam (see Judge Advocate General's Corps ). In November 1958, he retired from active service as a Colonel.

He spent his retirement in Merced , California , where he opened a private legal practice, raised almonds and ran a ranch in Montana with his brother Bill. He bequeathed the University of Idaho's law school with $ 6 million, the highest grant of the time. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://findagrave.com/cgi-bin//fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=76298352
  2. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=51598303
personal data
SURNAME Ellis, Burton F.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ellis, Burton French (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Troy, Idaho
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 2000