Leslie Skinner

Leslie Skinner
Colonel Leslie A Skinner
Born	(1900-04-21)April 21, 1900 San Francisco, California
Died	November 2, 1978(1978-11-02) (aged 78) Clearwater, Florida
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army Air Corps
Years of service	1941–1947
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Legion of Merit

Colonel Leslie Alfred Skinner LOM (April 21, 1900 – November 2, 1978) was an American rocket engineer. He played a leading role in the development of several rocket propelled weapons during World War II, notably the first shoulder-fired missile system, the Bazooka.

Born in San Francisco, California, in 1900, Skinner was the only son of an army surgeon. As a young teenager, he had a fascination with rockets and began to build his own, an activity that was forbidden after he had set fire to the hospital roof at Fort Strong, Massachusetts in 1915. He graduated from Boston Latin School in 1918 and after wartime military service, began medical training at Harvard University before deciding to follow his childhood interest in weaponry by enrolling at West Point. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps, he qualified as an airship pilot and air observer.

An attachment to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1932 gave him the chance to experiment with solid-propellant rockets, the only rocket research in the US Armed Forces at that time. After a spell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to complete a Master of Science degree, Skinner became an instructor at Aberdeen and continued his experiments in his spare time, often reusing discarded artillery propellants and scrap parts. There was little official interest in his work, and in 1938 he was posted to Hawaii for two years. In the meantime, the need for rocket weapons had been realised by the authorities and on his return, he was posted to the Indian Head Rocket Laboratory, Maryland, under the direction of Clarence N. Hickman.