- Date Of Birth: June 2, 1919
- Date Of Death: February 24, 2022
- State: North Carolina
Ed was born in Brooklyn, NY on 2 June 1919 to Martino and Anna Coppola. He met the love of his life during his high school years and was happily married to Gloria, raising four children together, until her death in 2011. The friendships he made – from his early years in New York, during the course of his 31 years of military service to his country, and in his retirement – endured for a lifetime.
Ed completed three years of college at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute before entering the United States Navy’s V-5 Program in November of 1941. He was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Naval Reserve, and received his Navy wings on 25 June 1942. He was immediately assigned to operational Fighter Squadrons THREE and ELEVEN which deployed to Guadalcanal for combat tours. On his return to the United States, Ed was reassigned to Fighter Squadron FOURTEEN embarked in USS WASP, and completed another combat tour with the Third and Fifth Fleets in Southwest PAC in July 1943. On return to the United States, he was assigned fighter pilot instructor duties in the Naval Air Training Command until June 1946, when he was augmented into the Regular Navy as a Lieutenant.
Captain Coppola attended the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, during 1952 and then returned to his native Brooklyn in October 1953 for a tour of duty at the U.S. Naval Air Station, New York and on the staff of Commander Eastern Sea Frontier. Captain Coppola’s next assignment was to command of Attack Squadron EIGHT FIVE in February 1958. The following year, he was ordered to the Pacific Projects Division, Operational Test and Evaluation Force as Assistant Officer in Charge until June 1961. An assignment to Washington, DC in the Research and Development Division, Bureau of Naval Weapons followed. In December 1962, Captain Coppola was assigned as Chief of the Research Branch in Project Cloud Gap, a joint venture of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In January 1966, Captain Coppola was ordered to duty in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations as Head of the Ocean Surveillance Branch in the Anti-Submarine Warfare and Ocean Surveillance Division. There, for his work as a team member in the successful search for the sunken U.S. Submarine Scorpion, Captain Coppola was awarded the Navy Legion of Merit.
Ed is predeceased by his wife Gloria, son Joseph and daughter-in-law Joyce, parents Martino and Anna, brother Walter, and sisters Helen and Lydia.
The Coppola family is grateful for the companionship and support given by Ed’s friends through the years following the death of his beloved wife, and is especially indebted to Weston Burnett and Genevieve Swyers for their unfailing graciousness and presence in Ed’s life.
