Leslie Groves

Leslie Richard Groves (b 1896) was a member of the United States Arm who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and the primary military leader in charge of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb during World War II.

Born in [Albany, New York he was educated at the University of Washington and Massachusetts Institute of Technology before attending [[United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1918 and was commissioned into the Army Corps of Engineers, completing his engineering studies at Camp Humphreys, 1918-1921. He married Grace Hulbert Wilson in 1922.

After working throughout the United States he was attached to the Office of the Chief of Engineers and received a promotion to Captain in October 1934 and following courses at the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth (1936) and the Army War College (1939) he was promoted to Major in 1940 and posted to the General Staff in Washington. He was deputy to the Chief of Construction and oversaw a number of projects including the construction of the Pentagon in 1940. In the same year he was promoted to Colonel.

In 1942 he accepted a sample of uranium from a British submarine in Boston Harbor. He carried the uranium to Denver, where he turned it over to the US physicists working on an atomic bomb. Groves remained in Denver as commander of the Manhattan Project until that project's completion. He designed the defenses of Denver when the Race advanced on that city in 1944.