Edward N. Hall
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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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the late 20th century. He is known as the father of the
Minuteman Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...
. A graduate of the College of the City of New York, Hall enlisted in the
United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
in September 1939. During World War II he served in Britain where he was awarded the
Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...
for the repair of battle-damaged
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
and
Consolidated B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
bombers. After the war ended he was assigned to the
Wright Air Development Center The Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) is an inactivated Air Force product center that designed, developed and delivered weapon systems and capabilities for U.S. Air Force, other U.S. military, allied and coalition-partner warfighters. ASC managed ...
(WADC), a top secret research lab where he collated reports on the German
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
and participated in the development of solid and liquid rocket power plants, working with
Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocke ...
to develop more powerful rocket engines. In August 1954 Hall joined the
Western Development Division Space Systems Command (SSC) is the United States Space Force's space development, acquisition, launch, and logistics field command. It is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California and manages the United States' space launch r ...
as the chief of Propulsion Development, and directed the development of engines for the
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
,
Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
and
Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...
missiles. In 1957 he was the director of the Thor development program and supervised the installation of Thor missiles in the UK. He also heade d the Minuteman project, and then went to Europe, where, at the urging of the Pentagon, he started the French
Diamant The Diamant rocket (French for "diamond") was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the United States or USSR. As such, it has been referred to as being a key ...
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.


Early life

Edward Nathaniel Holtzberg was born in
Forest Hills, Queens Forest Hills is a mostly residential neighborhood in the central portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. It is adjacent to Corona to the north, Rego Park and Glendale to the west, Forest Park to the south, Kew Gardens to the southeast, ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, the son of Rose Moskowitz and Barnett Holtzberg, a
furrier Fur clothing is clothing made from the preserved skins of mammals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing, and is thought to have been widely used by people for at least 120,000 years. The term 'fur' is often used to refer to a specific i ...
. His family was Jewish. He had a younger brother,
Theodore Theodore may refer to: Places * Theodore, Alabama, United States * Theodore, Australian Capital Territory * Theodore, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Banana, Australia * Theodore, Saskatchewan, Canada * Theodore Reservoir, a lake in Sask ...
(Ted), who became an accomplished
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
. Ted worked for the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
and became an
atomic spy Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold W ...
, passing nuclear secrets to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. The family company his father worked for, J. Holtzberg and Sons, went broke during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and the banks foreclosed, but Edward gained admission to
Townsend Harris Hall Prep School Townsend Harris Hall Prep School was a public preparatory school located in Manhattan in New York City. History The school is named for Townsend Harris, who besides his many diplomatic accomplishments, had helped found the Free Academy of the ...
by passing a competitive examination. He earned a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
degree from the College of the City of New York, where education was free, in 1935 and a
professional degree A professional degree, formerly known in the US as a first professional degree, is a degree that prepares someone to work in a particular profession, practice, or industry sector often meeting the academic requirements for licensure or accreditatio ...
in
chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...
the following year. Jobs for chemical engineers were hard to find during the Great Depression years, and despite having two degrees, he was unable to find work. He suspected that this was due to the prevalent
antisemitism in the United States Antisemitism in the United States has existed for centuries. In the United States, most Jewish community relations agencies draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status ...
, and in 1936 he and his brother Ted, then 11, legally changed their surname to "Hall". He still had trouble finding work as a chemical engineer, and for a time worked as an auto mechanic, a
steamfitter A pipefitter or steamfitter is a tradesman who installs, assembles, fabricates, maintains, and repairs mechanical piping systems. Pipefitters usually begin as helpers or apprentices. Journeyman pipefitters deal with industrial/commercial/marine pi ...
, a plumber, an electrician and a radio repairman.


World War II

Hall enlisted in the
United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
on 26 September 1939; the Air Corps was not yet commissioning engineers as
officers An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...
. He attended the school for airplane mechanics at
Chanute Field Chanute may refer to: *Chanute, Kansas, United States **Chanute High School *Octave Chanute (1832–1910), American civil engineer and aviation pioneer *Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois, United States *Octave Chanute Award, awarded by the Western S ...
near
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. After graduating, he was posted to
March Field March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Ma ...
in
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, and then to
Elmendorf Field Elmendorf may refer to: People with the surname *Dave Elmendorf, former NFL player *Douglas Elmendorf, 2009-2015 director of the Congressional Budget Office *Lucas Conrad Elmendorf, a United States Representative from New York *Steven Elmendorf, lo ...
in
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, where his skill at repairing aircraft and fixing the mistakes of others earned him a promotion to
sergeant Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...
. In 1941, the Air Corps put out a call for enlisted men with appropriate qualifications to apply for commissions. Hall immediately did so, and he was commissioned as a
second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
soon after the
Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
that brought the United States into
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In late 1942, Hall was sent to Britain. Soon after he arrived, he met Edith Shawcross, a niece of the English
barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
and politician
Hartley Shawcross Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Cri ...
and a graduate of
St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...
, where she earned an honors degree in botany. They were married in June 1943, and had two sons, David and Jonathan, and a daughter, Sheila. Hall became the officer in charge of the repair of battle-damaged
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
and
Consolidated B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
bombers aircraft at Base Air Depot 2 at
Warton Aerodrome Warton Aerodrome is located in Warton village on the Fylde in Lancashire, England. The aerodrome is west of Preston, Lancashire, UK. Today the airfield is a major assembly and testing facility of BAE Systems Military Air & Information. It ...
. He received the
Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...
for devising a new method of airplane
spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...
repair that saved several days by eliminating the stripping of the skin from the wings to replace the spar. Plates that spanned the fractured spar were connected with oversized pins, forced through holes drilled through the plate/spar overlap using extreme hydraulic pressure. The award of the Legion of Merit was very unusual for a
first lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a s ...
. He was promoted to
captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in October 1943 and
major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
on 1 June 1945. Hall's introduction to missiles came near the war's end when he was assigned to acquire intelligence on Germany's wartime propulsion work. He was awarded the
Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...
for this work, which began in conquered territory within Germany before the war had ended, and ended with his joining a special forces Army team at Peenemunde and Nordhausen in the eastern zone of Germany officially occupied by the Soviet Red Army.


Missile development work

Hall returned to the United States with his family in 1946, and was assigned to the
Wright Air Development Center The Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) is an inactivated Air Force product center that designed, developed and delivered weapon systems and capabilities for U.S. Air Force, other U.S. military, allied and coalition-partner warfighters. ASC managed ...
(WADC) at
Wright Field Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Loca ...
in
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. He hoped that his assignment would be to work on the development of rocket engines, but instead he became the chief propulsion officer in the Technical Intelligence Department, collating reports on the German
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
. He joined the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
(USAF) on its formation in September 1947, and soon after he moved to
Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...
, where he earned a
Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...
degree in aeronautical engineering from the
California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
in 1948. The Technical Intelligence Department then sent him back to Britain to evaluate the capabilities of the
Rolls-Royce Nene The Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine. The Nene was a complete redesign, rather than a scaled-up Rolls-Royce Derwent"Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" Bill Gunston, Patrick Stephens Limited 1989, , p.111 w ...
jet engines that the United Kingdom had sold the Soviet Union for its
MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of ...
fighters. On 22 May 1950, Hall returned to the WADC as the assistant chief of the Non-Rotating Engine Branch of the Power Plant Laboratory, which was responsible for rockets and
ramjet A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an ass ...
s. He participated in the development of solid and liquid rocket power plants. He worked with
Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocke ...
to develop a more powerful engine than the one used in the V-2, providing USAF funding for the project. The resulting engine had of thrust, but was neither as powerful nor as reliable as Hall wanted. Nonetheless, it saw service in the Army's
Redstone missile The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), it was in active service with the United States Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO's Cold War defense of W ...
, which had its first launch in 1953. He pursued the development of a larger rocket engine, diverting funds intended for the development of the
Navaho The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhe ...
, which Hall regarded as impractical owing to the limitations of the
inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...
s of the day. Hall discovered that among the projects that Major Sidney Greene, the chief of the New Developments Office, was responsible for was Project MX-1593, the
Atlas missile The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dyna ...
program. At this point only paper studies had been done. Hall suggested that the project be transferred to him, and $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ) earmarked for studies by
Convair Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee, was an American aircraft manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, it ...
be transferred to him and used to pay Rocketdyne for the development of a prototype rocket engine for an
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...
(ICBM) based on the Navaho engine. Greene agreed to do this. This was legal, but should have been cleared with the WADC commander,
Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...
Albert Boyd Albert G Boyd (November 22, 1906 – September 18, 1976) was a pioneering test pilot for the United States Air Force (USAF). During his 30-year career, he logged more than 23,000 hours of flight time in 723 military aircraft (though this number of ...
. When Convair found out about this, a complaint was lodged with the
Secretary of the Air Force A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...
,
Harold E. Talbott Harold Elstner Talbott, Jr. (March 31, 1888 – March 2, 1957) was the third United States Secretary of the Air Force. Biography He was born in Dayton, Ohio, in March 1888 and died in 1957. He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, ...
, who asked Boyd for an explanation. After hearing what Greene had to say, Boyd endorsed his decision. The result of the efforts of Hall and Rocketdyne's engineers was a prototype engine that generated of thrust. Like most liquid fuel engines, it burned
liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...
and
alcohol fuel Various alcohols are used as fuel for internal combustion engines. The first four aliphatic alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol) are of interest as fuels because they can be synthesized chemically or biologically, and they have ch ...
. Hall realised that highly-refined
kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...
would make a better rocket fuel, and he gave it the military designation
RP-1 RP-1 (alternatively, Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as rocket fuel. RP-1 provides a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen (LH2), but is cheaper, is st ...
. Modifying the engine to burn RP-1 lifted its thrust to . In May 1954, on the recommendation of the "Teapot" Committee chaired by
John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
, the USAF accorded top priority to Project Atlas, and
Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
Bernard A. Schriever Bernard Adolph Schriever (14 September 1910 – 20 June 2005), also known as Bennie Schriever, was a United States Air Force general who played a major role in the Air Force's space and ballistic missile programs. Born in Bremen, Germany, Schr ...
was appointed to command the
Western Development Division Space Systems Command (SSC) is the United States Space Force's space development, acquisition, launch, and logistics field command. It is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California and manages the United States' space launch r ...
(WDD) in
Inglewood, California Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 107,762. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. The city is in the South Bay ...
, which oversaw its development. Hall, now a
lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
, joined the WDD in August 1954 as the chief of Propulsion Development. As such, he directed the development of engines for the Atlas and
Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
ICBMs, and the
Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...
intermediate range ballistic missile An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ...
(IRBM). He was promoted to colonel in February 1957. That year, Hall became director of the Weapon System 315A (Thor) development program. Hall differed with Schriever over the role of Ramo-Wooldridge, which Schriever had contracted to oversee the integration of the project; Hall felt that USAF had sufficient technical expertise to manage the project itself. Schriever sent Hall to England to supervise the installation of Thor missiles there. After Schriever relieved him as the director of the Thor project in 1957, Hall requested a transfer out of the WDD, but Schriever declined his request and gave Hall the job of overseeing development of Weapon System 133A, the
Minuteman Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...
missile. This would be the first ICBM to use
solid fuel Solid fuel refers to various forms of solid material that can be burnt to release energy, providing heat and light through the process of combustion. Solid fuels can be contrasted with liquid fuels and gaseous fuels. Common examples of solid fuels ...
, and as such was a major challenge, and one that Hall had long sought. A solid-fuel ICBM potentially had many advantages over a liquid-fuel one, first and foremost that it could be stored in readiness for long periods of time, and then launched in "under a minute". There were many technical obstacles that had to be overcome. The problem of getting the fuel to burn evenly was solved by hall's idea of casting the fuel with a star-shaped cut down the middle. A more difficult problem that Hall solved was that of shutting down the rocket in flight, which he achieved by opening ports to reduce the pressure and snuff out the propellant. Steering was achieved with swiveling engine nozzles. The resulting three-stage rocket weighed only at lift-off compared to for Atlas. To do this, he compelled the nuclear weapon designers to get the weight of a
hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
down to under . Hall remained in charge of Minuteman until August 1958, when Schriever relieved him. As the design problems were largely solved and the project moved into a new phase of testing and production, Schriever felt that the project required someone with greater administrative skills who could work more harmoniously with all the stakeholders involved. Hall was awarded an
oak leaf cluster An oak leaf cluster is a ribbon device to denote preceding decorations and awards consisting of a miniature bronze or silver twig of four oak leaves with three acorns on the stem. It is authorized by the United States Armed Forces for a speci ...
to his Legion of Merit in 1960 for his contribution to the development of solid-fuel rockets. He would be remembered as the "father of the Minuteman ICBM". Hall was sent to
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to take the lead in designing, developing, producing, and deploying a solid-fueled IRBM for
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. Coordinating engineers from France, Germany, Italy and the UK was no easy task, but he managed to get the project under way. The result of this effort was the only European IRBM: the French
Diamant The Diamant rocket (French for "diamond") was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the United States or USSR. As such, it has been referred to as being a key ...
.


FBI investigation

In January 1950, when
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
was notified by the Army Security Agency (successor to the Army's Signal Intelligence Service or SIS), that Theodore Hall, Ed Hall's younger brother and a teenage physicist on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos from January 1944 to the end of the war, had been identified in decrypted Soviet spy cables as a spy in the project for the NKVD, his counter-intelligence unit in the FBI quickly identified Major Hall as his brother. In a January 6, 1951 letter to the USAF's first director of that military branch's Office of Special Investigations Gen. Joseph Carroll, Hoover alerted him to the troubling family connection. That letter, which was found through a FOIA request by journalist Lindorff for Edward Hall's FBI file, was followed by a second letter Hoover sent on March 24, 1951 in which Hoover refers to a response that he had received from General Carroll. Hoover noted that Gen. Carroll had ignored and not responded to his earlier request to be permitted to interview Edward Hall about the relationship and any current or past knowledge about his brother's spying, and Carroll had said his own OSI would be investigating Major Hall's loyalty, not the FBI. Hoover said in the same March 24 letter that the FBI's investigation of Hall had "advanced" to the point that an interview of Edward Hall would be needed as soon as possible. It was not until June 12 that his request was granted by Carroll and then with a restriction that Bureau agents limit their questioning to Edward Hall's activities, not his brother's. The OSI by then, according to FBI comments in their file on Edward, had been questioned four times by OSI investigators. Edward denied knowing anything of his younger brother's being a spy. Within several weeks following his FBI interview, Edward Hall was promoted by the Air Force to lieutenant-colonel and was made co-director of the secret missile engine lab at Wright-Patterson AFB where he was then working, a clear slap at the FBI and evidence that the Air Force concluded that its rocket expert was no Soviet agent or threat to US national security. The whole story of the relationship of the two brothers and of how the Air Force's concern with keeping Edward, who in 1957 was promoted to colonel and later put in charge of the development of the Minuteman Missile program, is detailed in an article, ″One Brother Gave the Soviets the Bomb. The Other Got a Medal," Dave Lindorff, ''The Nation'', Jan. 4, 2022. In February, the FBI's combined file on Theodore Hall and his spy courier and Harvard roommate Saville Sax contained entries stating that their names had been removed from the Special Subjects Index, indicating that they were no longer under investigation or being monitored by the Bureau. The evidence appears clear that USAF OSI head General Carroll and the Pentagon shut down Hoover's investigation of the two For fear that any arrest of the younger Hall in the political environment of that time would have caused them to lose their key rocket scientist, Edward Hall. The Hall brothers remained close their whole lives until Ted's death from kidney cancer in 1999, and Edward never publicly or, according to his children and to Ted's widow, Joan Hall, ever privately criticized Ted's spying, which experts say helped advance the Soviet acquisition of an atomic bomb to August. 29, 1949, some five years sooner than US experts had expected.


Later life

On 27 October 1959, Hall retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel and then joined
United Aircraft The United Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer formed by the break-up of United Aircraft and Transport Corporation in 1934. In 1975, the company became United Technologies. History Pre-1930s 1930s The Air Mail scandal ...
Corporation as an engineer. He spent fourteen years there before retiring. In retirement, he continued to perform consulting work for aerospace companies. In 1999, he received the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Award and was elected a member of the Hall of Fame at the US Air Force Space Command at
Peterson Air Force Base Peterson Space Force Base, previously Peterson Air Force Base, Peterson Field, and Army Air Base, Colorado Springs, is a U.S. Space Force Base that shares an airfield with the adjacent Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and is home to the Nor ...
in
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
. A broken hip in 2005 and other medical problems left him bedridden at his home in
Rolling Hills Estates Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. On the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates is mostly residential. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills Estates has ...
for a year and a half. He died at
Torrance Memorial Medical Center Torrance Memorial Medical Center is a private hospital located in Torrance, California. Torrance Memorial was the first hospital in the Los Angeles South Bay region and is currently one of the three burn centers in Los Angeles County. History ...
in
Torrance, California Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the m ...
, on 15 January 2006.


Notes


References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Edward N. 1914 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American engineers American aerospace engineers California Institute of Technology alumni City College of New York alumni Military personnel from New York City People from Forest Hills, Queens Recipients of the Legion of Merit United States Air Force officers United States Army Air Forces officers