Leslie Groves
Leslie Groves | |
---|---|
Birth name | Leslie Richard Groves Jr. |
Born | Albany, New York, U.S. | 17 August 1896
Died | 13 July 1970 Washington, D.C., U.S. | (aged 73)
Place of burial | Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, U.S. |
Service/ | United States Army |
Years of service | 1918–1948 |
Rank | Lieutenant general |
Unit | Corps of Engineers |
Commands held | |
Battles/wars |
|
Awards | |
Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States Military Academy (BS) |
Signature |
Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a
The son of a
In September 1942, Groves took charge of the Manhattan Project. He was involved in most aspects of the atomic bomb's development: he participated in the selection of sites for research and production at
After the war, Groves remained in charge of the Manhattan Project until responsibility for nuclear weapons production was handed over to the
Early life
Leslie Richard Groves Jr. was born in
Following the outbreak of the
In 1911, Chaplain Groves was ordered to return to the 14th Infantry, which was now stationed at Fort William Henry Harrison, Montana. At Fort Harrison, the younger Groves met Grace (Boo) Wilson, the daughter of Colonel Richard Hulbert Wilson, a career Army officer who had served with Chaplain Groves during the 8th Infantry's posting to Cuba. In 1913, the 14th Infantry moved once more, this time to Fort Lawton in Seattle, Washington.[7]
Groves entered
Groves's class entered West Point on 15 June 1916. The United States declaration of war on Germany in April 1917 led to their program of instruction being shortened as the War Emergency Course (WEC), which graduated on 1 November 1918, a year and a half ahead of schedule. Groves finished fourth in his class, which earned him a commission as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, the first choice of most high ranking cadets.[10][11]
At MIT he had played tennis informally, but at West Point he could not skate for ice hockey, did not like basketball, and was not good enough for baseball or track. So football was his only sport. He said that "I was the number two center but was on the bench most of the time as in those days you didn't have substitutes and normally the number one played the whole game. I was not very heavy, and today would be considered too light to play at all".[12]
Between the wars
After the traditional month's leave following graduation from West Point, Groves reported to
He returned to Camp Humphreys in February 1921 for the Engineer Basic Officers' Course.[13] On graduation in August 1921, he was posted to the 4th Engineers, stationed at Camp Lewis, Washington. He was then posted to Fort Worden in command of a survey detachment.[10] This was close to Seattle, so he was able to pursue his courtship of Grace Wilson, who had become a kindergarten teacher. They were married in St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Seattle on 10 February 1922.[13] Their marriage produced two children: a son, Richard Hulbert, born in 1923, and a daughter, Gwen, born in 1928.[14]
In November 1922, Groves received his first overseas posting, as a company commander with the 3rd Engineers at the
During the
In 1929, Groves departed for
World War II
Construction Division
Groves was promoted to
On 12 November 1940, Gregory asked Groves to take over command of the Fixed Fee Branch of the Construction Division as soon as his promotion to colonel came through. Groves assumed his new rank and duties on 14 November 1940.[17] Groves later recalled:
During the first week that I was on duty there, I could not walk out of my office down the corridor to Hartman's office without being literally assailed by the officers or civilian engineers with liaison responsibility for various camps. It is no exaggeration to state that during this period decisions involving up to $5,000,000 [$109,000,000 with inflation[18]] were made at the rate of about one every 100 feet of corridor walked.[17]
First, General Groves is the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for. He is most demanding. He is most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make difficult, timely decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so sticks by his decision. He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard or even harder than he does. Although he gave me great responsibility and adequate authority to carry out his mission-type orders, he constantly meddled with my subordinates. However, to compensate for that he had a small staff, which meant that we were not subject to the usual staff-type heckling. He ruthlessly protected the overall project from other government agency interference, which made my task easier. He seldom accepted other agency cooperation and then only on his own terms. During the war and since I have had the opportunity to meet many of our most outstanding leaders in the Army, Navy and Air Force as well as many of our outstanding scientific, engineering and industrial leaders. And in summary, if I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss I would pick General Groves.
Groves instituted a series of reforms. He installed phone lines for the Supervising Construction Quartermasters, demanded weekly reports on progress, ordered that reimbursement vouchers be processed within a week, and sent expediters to sites reporting shortages. He ordered his contractors to hire whatever special equipment they needed and to pay premium prices if necessary to guarantee quick delivery. Instead of allowing construction of camps to proceed in whatever order the contractors saw fit, Groves laid down priorities for completion of camp facilities, so that the troops could begin moving in even while construction was still under way.[17]
By mid-December, the worst of the crisis was over. Over half a million men had been mobilized and essential accommodations and facilities for two million men were 95 per cent complete.[17] Between 1 July 1940 and 10 December 1941, the Construction Division let contracts worth $1,676,293,000 ($34,724,300,000 with inflation[18]), of which $1,347,991,000 ($27,923,500,000 with inflation[18]), or about 80 per cent, were fixed-fee contracts.[20]
On 19 August 1941, Groves was summoned to a meeting with the head of the Construction Division,
The Pentagon had a total square footage of 5,100,000 square feet (470,000 m2) – twice that of the Empire State Building – making it the largest office building in the world. The estimated cost was $35 million ($725,000,000 with inflation[18]), and Somervell wanted 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) of floor space available by 1 March 1942. Bergstrom became the architect-engineer with Renshaw in charge of construction, reporting directly to Groves.[21] At its peak the project employed 13,000 persons. By the end of April, the first occupants were moving in and 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of space was ready by the end of May.[22] In the end, the project cost some $63 million ($1,305,000,000 with inflation[18]).[23]
Groves steadily overcame one crisis after another, dealing with strikes, shortages, competing priorities and engineers who were not up to their tasks. He worked six days a week in his office in Washington, D.C. During the week he would determine which project was in the greatest need of personal attention and pay it a visit on Sunday. Groves later recalled that he was "hoping to get to a war theater so I could find a little peace."[24]
Manhattan Project
The
Although Reybold was satisfied with the progress being made,
Groves met with Major General Wilhelm D. Styer in his office at the Pentagon to discuss the details. They agreed that in order to avoid suspicion, Groves would continue to supervise the Pentagon project. He would be promoted to brigadier general, as it was felt that the title "general" would hold more sway with the academic scientists working on the Manhattan Project.[27] Groves therefore waited until his promotion came through on 23 September 1942 before assuming his new command. His orders placed him directly under Somervell rather than Reybold, with Marshall now answerable to Groves.[25]
Groves was given authority to sign contracts for the project from 1 September 1942. The Under Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, retrospectively delegated his authority from the President under the War Powers Act of 1941 in a memorandum to Groves dated 17 April 1944. Groves delegated the authority to Kenneth Nichols, except for contracts of $5 million or more that required his authority. The written authority was only given in 1944 when Nichols was about to sign a contract with Du Pont, and it was found that Nichols's original authority to sign project contracts for Marshall was based on a verbal authority from Styer, and Nichols only had the low delegated authority of a divisional engineer.[28]
Groves soon decided to establish his project headquarters on the fifth floor of the New War Department Building, now known as the Harry S Truman Building, in Washington, D.C., where Marshall had maintained a liaison office.[29] In August 1943, the MED headquarters moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but the name of the district did not change.[30]
Construction accounted for roughly 90 percent of the Manhattan Project's total cost.
Meanwhile, Groves had met with J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and discussed the creation of a laboratory where the bomb could be designed and tested. Groves was impressed with the breadth of Oppenheimer's knowledge. He had a long conversation on a train after a meeting in Chicago on October 15, when Groves invited Oppenheimer to join Marshall and Nichols on the 20th Century Limited train returning to New York. After dinner on the train they discussed the project squeezed into in Nichols's one-person roomette, and when Oppenheimer left the train at Buffalo, Nichols had no doubt that he should direct the new lab.[34] Groves saw that Oppenheimer thoroughly understood the issues involved in setting up a laboratory in a remote area. These were features that Groves found lacking in other scientists, and he knew that broad knowledge would be vital in an interdisciplinary project that would involve not just physics, but chemistry, metallurgy, ordnance, and engineering.[35]
In October 1942 Groves and Oppenheimer inspected sites in New Mexico, where they selected a suitable location for the laboratory at Los Alamos. Unlike Oak Ridge, the ranch school at Los Alamos, along with 54,000 acres (22,000 ha) of surrounding forest and grazing land, was soon acquired.[36] Groves also detected in Oppenheimer something that many others did not, an "overweening ambition" which Groves reckoned would supply the drive necessary to push the project to a successful conclusion. Groves became convinced that Oppenheimer was the best and only man to run the laboratory.[35]
Few agreed with him in 1942. Oppenheimer had little administrative experience and, unlike other potential candidates, no
Groves made critical decisions on prioritizing the various methods of
The Combined Development Trust was established by the governments of the United Kingdom, United States and Canada in June 1944, with Groves as its chairman, to procure uranium and thorium ores on international markets. In 1944, the trust purchased 3,440,000 pounds (1,560,000 kg) of uranium oxide ore from companies operating mines in the Belgian Congo. In order to avoid briefing the Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr., on the project, a special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and the time he resigned from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5 million into the Trust's account.[43]
Worried by the heavy losses occurring during the Battle of the Bulge, in late December 1944 President Roosevelt requested atomic bombs be dropped on Germany during his only meeting with Groves during the war.[44] Groves informed him the first workable bomb was months away.
In 1943, the Manhattan District became responsible for collecting
Groves met with
At this point,
Groves was promoted to temporary
Major General Leslie Richard Groves, as Commanding General, Manhattan Engineer District, Army Service Forces, from June 1942 to August 1945 coordinated, administered and controlled a project of unprecedented, world-wide significance—the development of the Atomic Bomb. His was the responsibility for procuring materiel and personnel, marshalling the forces of government and industry, erecting huge plants, blending the scientific efforts of the United States and foreign countries, and maintaining completely secret the search for a key to release atomic energy. He accomplished his task with such outstanding success that in an amazingly short time the Manhattan Engineer District solved this problem of staggering complexity, defeating the Axis powers in the race to produce an instrument whose peacetime potentialities are no less marvellous than its wartime application is awesome. The achievement of General Groves is of unfathomable importance to the future of the nation and the world.[52]
Groves had previously been nominated for the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Pentagon, but to avoid drawing attention to the Manhattan Project, it had not been awarded at the time. After the war, the Decorations Board decided to change it to a
After the war
Responsibility for
The Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, met with Groves on 30 January 1948 to evaluate his performance. Eisenhower recounted a long list of complaints about Groves pertaining to his rudeness, arrogance, insensitivity, contempt for the rules, and maneuvering for promotion out of turn. Eisenhower made it clear that Groves would never become Chief of Engineers.[55]
Groves realized that in the rapidly shrinking postwar military he would not be given any assignment similar in importance to the one he had held in the Manhattan Project, as such posts would go to combat commanders returning from overseas, and he decided to leave the Army.[55] In recognition of his leadership of the Manhattan Project, he received an honorary promotion to lieutenant general by special Act of Congress,[56] effective 24 January 1948, just before his retirement on 29 February 1948. His date of rank was backdated to 16 July 1945, the date of the Trinity nuclear test.[16]
Later life
Groves went on to become a vice president at
Groves suffered a
Legacy
Groves is memorialized at a namesake park along the Columbia River, near the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington.[64]
The 1980 BBC series, Oppenheimer, featured Manning Redwood as Groves. The same year, he was played by Richard Herd in the American television movie, Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb. In the 1989 film Fat Man and Little Boy, he was portrayed by Paul Newman.[65] and in the made-for-TV movie of the same year, Day One, by Brian Dennehy.[66] In 1995, Groves was portrayed by Richard Masur in the Japanese-Canadian made-for-television movie Hiroshima.[67] He was portrayed by Eric Owens in the 2007 Lyric Opera of Chicago's work Doctor Atomic. The opera follows Oppenheimer, Groves, Edward Teller and others in the days preceding the Trinity test.[68] Groves is played by Matt Damon in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film Oppenheimer.[69]
Dates of rank
Insignia | Rank | Component | Date |
---|---|---|---|
No insignia | Cadet | United States Military Academy | 15 June 1916[70] |
Second Lieutenant |
Regular Army | 1 November 1918[71] | |
First Lieutenant | Regular Army | 1 May 1919[70] | |
Captain | Regular Army | 20 October 1934[70] | |
Major | Regular Army | 1 July 1940[70] | |
Lieutenant Colonel | Regular Army | 11 December 1942[72] | |
Colonel (temporary) | Army of the United States | 14 November 1940[72] | |
Brigadier General (temporary) | Army of the United States | 6 September 1942[72] | |
Major General (temporary) | Army of the United States | 9 March 1944[73] | |
Brigadier General | Regular Army | 6 December 1945[70] | |
Lieutenant General (honorary) | Regular Army | 24 January 1948 (with effect from 16 July 1945, per Private Law 394-A of the 80th Congress)[73] | |
Major General | Retired | 29 February 1948[73] | |
Lieutenant General (honorary) | Retired | 29 February 1948[73] |
Notes
- ^ a b c Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 158–159
- ^ Ancell & Miller 1996, pp. 124–125
- ^ a b Norris 2002, pp. 25–28
- ^ "General Leslie Groves's Interview – Part 2". Voices of the Manhattan Project. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 34–37
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 43–47
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 51–54
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 61–69
- ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 426
- ^ a b c d e f Cullum 1930, pp. 1337–1338
- ^ a b Norris 2002, pp. 87–90
- ^ Ermenc 1989, pp. 208, 209.
- ^ a b Norris 2002, pp. 96–98
- ^ a b c Norris 2002, pp. 100–105
- ^ Cullum 1940, p. 382
- ^ a b c d Cullum 1950, p. 371
- ^ a b c d e Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 241–243
- ^ a b c d e 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved 29 February 2024.
- ^ Nichols 1987, p. 108
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 430–431
- ^ a b Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 431–439
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 511–512
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 608–609
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, p. 513
- ^ a b c Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 659–661
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 3–4
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 4–5
- ^ Nichols 1987, p. 132.
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 27–28
- ^ Jones 1985, p. 88
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, p. 663
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 25–26
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 663–664
- ^ Nichols 1987, p. 73.
- ^ a b c Bird & Sherwin 2005, pp. 185–187
- ^ Fine & Remington 1972, pp. 664–665
- ^ Nichols 1987, pp. 72–73
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 260–263
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 61–63
- ^ Norris 2002, p. 242
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 57–61
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 80–82
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 90, 299–306
- ISBN 978-1-63220-101-0. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 189–194
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 254–259
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 265–266
- ^ Herman 2012, pp. 313–315, 332
- ^ Groves 1962, pp. 253–259
- ^ a b Groves 1962, pp. 268–276
- ^ Groves 1962, p. 308
- ^ a b Norris 2002, p. 443
- ^ Jones 1985, pp. 596–601
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 490–491
- ^ a b Norris 2002, pp. 502–504
- ^ "Biographies: Leslie R. Groves". National Museum of the United States Army. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
- ^ Norris 2002, p. 505
- ^ a b Norris 2002, pp. 517–519
- ^ Norris 2002, p. 533
- ^ "Headed A-Bomb Development – Heart Attack Claims Life Of Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves (1970)". Standard-Speaker. 15 July 1970. p. 1. Retrieved 25 June 2017.
- ^ "A-bomb's boss dies after heart attack". Eugene Register-Guard. Oregon. United Press International. 14 July 1970. p. 1A. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ^ "General dies". Spokane Daily Chronicle. (Washington). Associated Press. 14 July 1970. p. 1. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ^ Norris 2002, pp. 69, 537–539
- ^ Leslie Groves – Hanford Site, United States Department of Energy, retrieved 4 October 2010
- ^ "Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)". Popmatters. 3 May 2004. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
- ^ "Day One (1989)". Retrieved 3 August 2023.
- ^ Ringle, Ken (6 August 1995). "'Hiroshima': A Blast of Honesty". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
- ^ "Sounds of silence resonate in Lyric's "Doctor Atomic" (Oppenheimer & Groves) (2007)". The Daily Herald. 16 December 2007. p. 32. Retrieved 25 June 2017.
- ^ Kroll, Justin (2 November 2021). "Robert Downey Jr. And Matt Damon Latest Stars To Join Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'". Deadline. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
- ^ a b c d e Official Army and Air Force Register (Volume I: A to Q). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1948.
- ^ Distinguishing Marks of the Army-Navy. Chicago, IL: Chicago Daily News Company. 1918.
- ^ a b c Patterson, Michael (4 July 2023). "Leslie Richard Groves - Lieutenant General, United States Army". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
- ^ a b c d Official Army Register, Volume I (United States Army: Active and Retired Lists). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1950.
References
- Ancell, R. Manning; Miller, Christine (1996). The Biographical Dictionary of World War II Generals and Flag Officers: The US Armed Forces. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. OCLC 33862161.
- OCLC 56753298.
- Cullum, George W. (1930). Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point New York Since Its Establishment in 1802: Supplement Volume VII 1920–1930. Chicago: R. R. Donnelly and Sons, The Lakeside Press. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
- Cullum, George W. (1940). Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point New York Since Its Establishment in 1802: Supplement Volume VIII 1930–1940. Chicago: R. R. Donnelly and Sons, The Lakeside Press. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
- Cullum, George W. (1950). Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point New York Since Its Establishment in 1802: Supplement Volume IX 1940–1950. Chicago: R. R. Donnelly and Sons, The Lakeside Press. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
- Ermenc, Joseph J., ed. (1989). Atomic Bomb Scientists: Memoirs, 1939–1945. Westport, Connecticut: Meckler. OCLC 708445679.
- Fine, Lenore; Remington, Jesse A. (1972). The Corps of Engineers: Construction in the United States. Washington, D.C.: OCLC 834187.
- Groves, Leslie (1962). Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper. OCLC 537684.
- Herman, Arthur (2012). Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. New York: Random House. OCLC 756377562.
- Jones, Vincent (1985). Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb. Washington, D.C.: OCLC 10913875.
- Lawren, William (1988). The General and the Bomb: A Biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project. New York: Dodd, Mead. OCLC 6868107.
- OCLC 15223648.
- Norris, Robert S. (2002). Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man. South Royalton, Vermont: Steerforth Press. OCLC 48544060.
- OCLC 13793436.
External links
- "1965 Audio Interviews with General Leslie R. Groves by Stephane Groueff". Voices of the Manhattan Project. Retrieved 14 September 2015. 11 hours of interviews with Groves on the Manhattan Project.
- "The First Nuclear Test in New Mexico". WGBH American Experience. 18 July 1945. Archived from the original on 11 September 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015. Memorandum for the Secretary of War, Groves describes the first Trinity (nuclear test) in New Mexico.
- Papers of Leslie Groves at the National Archives and Records Administration Archived 26 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- Arlington National Cemetery