Leslie Groves
- Birthdate
- 1896/08/17
- Birthplace
- New York, NY, USA
- Death date
- 1970/07/13
- Associated organizations
- US Army
- Fields of study
- Nuclear weapons
Biography
Lieutenant General Leslie Groves was born in New York on August 17th, 1896, and was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer and director of the Manhattan Project.
As the son of an army chaplain, Groves grew up on military posts throughout the United States. He attended the University of Washington for one year, MIT for two years, and then entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1916. He graduated two years later, ten days before the armistice ending World War I. He worked in the Corps of Engineers and was assigned various engineering duties throughout the U.S. and Hawaii. He was named deputy to the Chief on Construction in 1940, and eventually oversaw all army construction in the U.S., involving building camps, munitions plants, airfields, depots, and the Pentagon.
He was appointed head of the Manhattan Project in September of 1942, with the rank of Temporary Brigadier General. He was in charge of scientific, technical and process development, construction, production, security and military intelligence, and planning for use of the bomb.
Groves retired from the army in 1948 and took a position with Remington Rand. He wrote Now It Can Be Told in 1962, describing his experience of running the Manhattan Project. Groves died in Washington, DC on July 13, 1970.
Further Reading
https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/leslie-r-groves
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leslie-Richard-Groves
