Leslie Alfred Skinner

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.

Early life and education

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. He graduated in 1924. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps, he qualified as an airship pilot and air observer.

Rocket development

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,

During development of the M8 rocket in the fall of 1941, Skinner produced the first prototypes which he tested at Aberdeen; he had improvised the rocket casings from old fire extinguisher tanks which were across, thereby fixing the diameter of the developed weapon.

In 1943, Skinner was posted to the United Kingdom to liaise with his British counterparts. While in England, he helped to identify the first photographic reconnaissance images of the German V-2 ballistic missiles.

Later career and retirement In July 1945, Skinner was sent to the Pacific Theater to organize ordnance supply, before retiring from the army in 1948 to take up a post at the Aerojet Engineering Corporation in Rancho Cordova, California. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Skinner was recalled and given a commission in the Air Force, where he established a weapons test facility at Eglin Air Force Base. Retiring from the military for a second time two years later, he became a consultant for the weapons manufacturing Oerlikon Group. In 1970, he moved to Belleair Bluffs, Florida and took up sculpture.

Leslie Skinner died on November 2, 1978. He and his wife Margaret had two children. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.