• December 11, 1894 – March 8, 1943
• Colonel Army
• Knoxville
• Liberal Arts- 1915-17
• Colonel Sam Love Ellis died at his home, 100 Washington Blvd., Big Spring in Texas of a heart attack. 
• Abilene Reporter News, 9 March 1943
  Big Spring – Colonel Sam. L. Ellis, 49, Commander of the Big Spring Bombardier school, died of a heart attack at his home here Monday. Colonel Ellis was assigned to the bombardier school in June 1942 as project officer and became commander when the school was activated in September.
• Colonel Ellis knows what war is like from personal experience. Enlisting early in 1918 as a cadet in the infant Army Air Force, then just a branch of the signal corps, he trained at the graduate pursuit school at Gerstner Field, La., and then at Issoudun, France. From there, as a fledgling pilot, he went into service in the 141st Pursuit Squadron at Toul, France for the duration of World War I and then was with the Army of Occupation with base at Coblenz, Germany.
  Subsequently, he became commanding officer of the 147th, the 94th and the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, serving in that capacity until 1932, with time out as commanding officer for cadets from 1925-30.
  In 1933 he was selected by the army to attend the important Command and Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and his superiors kept him on there as an instructor until 1935.
  When the army, with a lot more insight into conditions in the Far East than swivel chair observers, had set about preparing facilities in the Philippines against any eventuality, a new assignment fell the lot of Col Ellis, and he was ordered to the islands where he had charge of field construction.
  As war clouds loomed, he was ordered back to the states and became army chief of aviation for the Third Army in 1940 and 1941. From Randolph Field, he was ordered here in June to become project officer for the school construction and remained on the serve as commanding officer.
• Colonel Ellis is a native Tennessean, having been born and reared at Knoxville where he was graduated from the high school in 1914. He attended the University of Tennessee from 1914 to 1917 when the United States was brought into World War I.
• Died of heart attack while at Big Springs, Texas
• Buried at New Salem United Methodist Church Cemetery in Knoxville

Samuel Love Ellis (December 11, 1894 – March 8, 1943) was from Knoxville, Tennessee. Ellis attended the University of Tennessee’s College of Liberal Arts from 1915 to 1917. His studies were interrupted when he enlisted in the Army when the United States joined World War I in 1918. He participated in the early years of the Army Air Corps, training at Gerstner Field, Louisiana before being deployed as a pilot in the 141st Pursuit Squadron in France. At the end of the war, Ellis chose to make a career out of the military and went on to serve as the commanding officer of the 147th, 94th, and 3rd Pursuit Squadrons between 1919 and 1932. In 1933, he was selected and graduated from the Command and Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas as a Colonel. He served as an instructor at Fort Leavenworth and then was stationed in the Philippines before the start of the Second World War.  Colonel Ellis helped establish the Big Spring Bombardier School in Big Springs Texas when the United States entered the war. He continued on as its commander after its completion in 1942. He died of a heart attack there on March 9, 1943. He is buried at New Salem United Methodist Church Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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