Leslie Groves - Early Life

Early Life

Leslie Richard (Dick) 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 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.