Edward N. Hall

rdf:langString Edward N. Hall

rdf:langString Torrance, California, U.S.

rdf:langString New York City, U.S.

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Legion of Merit

rdf:langString Bronze Star Medal

rdf:langString * World War II ** Combined Bomber Offensive

rdf:langString Edward Nathaniel Holtzberg

rdf:langString United States Air Force

rdf:langString United States Army

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Colonel

rdf:langString Edward Nathaniel Hall (4 August 1914 – 15 January 2006) was a leading missile development engineer working for the United States and its allies in World War II and the late 20th century. He is known as the father of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. A graduate of the College of the City of New York, Hall enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in September 1939. During World War II he served in Britain where he was awarded the Legion of Merit for the repair of battle-damaged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers. After the war ended he was assigned to the Wright Air Development Center (WADC), a top secret research lab where he collated reports on the German V-2 rocket and participated in the development of solid and liquid rocket power plants, working with Rocketdyne to develop more powerful rocket engines. In August 1954 Hall joined the Western Development Division as the chief of Propulsion Development, and directed the development of engines for the Atlas, Titan and Thor missiles. In 1957 he was the director of the Thor development program and supervised the installation of Thor missiles in the UK. He also headed the Minuteman project, and then went to Europe, where, at the urging of the Pentagon, he started the French Diamant missile project, a nuclear warhead-carrying IRBM which was central to President De Gaulle's desire for France to have an independent nuclear force separate from the US and NATO.