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Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves, Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. As the son of a United States Army chaplain, Groves lived at a number of Army posts during his childhood. He graduated fourth in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1918 and was commissioned into the US Army Corps of Engineers. In 1929, he went to Nicaragua as part of an expedition whose purpose was to conduct a survey for the Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal. Following the 1931 Nicaragua earthquake, Groves took over responsibility for Managua's water supply system, for which he was awarded the Nicaraguan Presidential Medal of Merit. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935 and 1936, and the Army War College in 1938 and 1939, after which he was posted to the War Department General Staff. In 1940 Groves, who "had a reputation as a doer, a driver, and a stickler for duty",〔 became special assistant for construction to the Quartermaster General, tasked with inspecting construction sites and checking on their progress. In August 1941, he was given responsibility for the gigantic office complex to house the War Department's 40,000 staff which would ultimately become the Pentagon. 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 Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington. He directed the enormous construction effort, made critical decisions on the various methods of isotope separation, acquired raw materials, directed the collection of military intelligence on the German nuclear energy project and helped select the cities in Japan that were chosen as targets. Groves wrapped the Manhattan Project in security but failed to prevent the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from conducting a successful espionage program that stole some of its most important secrets. After the war, Groves remained in charge of the Manhattan Project until responsibility for nuclear weapons production was handed over to the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1947. He then headed the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, which had been created to control the military aspects of nuclear weapons. Groves realized that in the rapidly shrinking postwar military he would not be given any assignment approaching in importance the one he had held in the Manhattan Project, and he decided to leave the Army in 1948. He was promoted to lieutenant general just before his retirement on 29 February 1948 in recognition of his leadership of the bomb program. By a special Act of Congress, his date of rank was backdated to 16 July 1945, the date of the Trinity nuclear test. Groves went on to become a vice-president at Sperry Rand. == Early life == Leslie Richard Groves Jr. was born in Albany, New York, on 17 August 1896, the third son of four children of a pastor, Leslie Richard Groves, Sr, and his wife Gwen née Griffith. A descendant of French Huguenots who came to America in the 17th century, Leslie Groves, Sr resigned as pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian church in Albany in December 1896 to become a United States Army chaplain. He was posted to the 14th Infantry at Vancouver Barracks in Washington in 1897. Following the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Chaplain Groves was sent to Cuba with the 8th Infantry. On returning to Vancouver Barracks, he was ordered to rejoin the 14th Infantry in the Philippines; service in the Philippine–American War and the Boxer Rebellion followed. The 14th Infantry returned to the United States in 1901 and moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The family relocated to there from Vancouver, then moved to Fort Hancock, New Jersey, the next year, and returned to Vancouver in 1905. Chaplain Groves was hospitalized with tuberculosis at Fort Bayard in 1905. He decided to settle in southern California and bought a house in Altadena. His next posting was to Fort Apache, Arizona. The family spent their summers there and returned to Altadena where the children attended school. In 1911, Chaplain Groves was ordered to return to the 14th Infantry, which was now stationed at Fort William Henry Harrison, Montana. Here young Dick Groves met Grace (Boo) Wilson, the daughter of Colonel Richard Hulbert Wilson, a career Army officer who had served with Chaplain Groves with the 8th Infantry in Cuba. In 1913, the 14th Infantry moved once more, this time to Fort Lawton, Washington. Dick Groves entered Queen Anne High School in nearby Seattle in 1913. In September of that year, he commenced his final year of high school, and also enrolled at the University of Washington. He attempted to secure an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1914, securing a nomination from the president, allowing him to compete for a vacancy, but did not score a sufficiently high enough mark on the examination. Charles W. Bell from California's 9th congressional district accepted Groves as an alternate for one of his appointments, but the principal nominee accepted. Instead, Groves enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1916, Groves took the examinations for admission to West Point again and this time he was accepted. "Entering West Point fulfilled my greatest ambition. I had been brought up in the Army, and in the main had lived on Army posts all my life," Groves said after the fact. Groves' class entered West Point on 15 June 1916, but the United States declaration of war on Germany in April 1917 led to the course being shortened to what was known as the War Emergency Course, which graduated early on 1 November 1918. Groves came fourth in his class, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps of Engineers was the usual appointment for the highest-ranking cadets in a class.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leslie Groves」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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