William Sterling Parsons

Clara was the granddaughter of James Rood Doolittle, who served as US Senator from Wisconsin between 1857 and 1869, and of Joel Aldrich Matteson, Governor of Illinois from 1853 to 1857.

William Sterling Parsons (26 November 1901 – 5 December 1953) was an American naval officer who worked as an ordnance expert on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

William Sterling Parsons was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 26 November 1901, the oldest of three children of a lawyer, Harry Robert Parsons, and his wife Clara, née Doolittle.

In 1909, the family moved to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where William learned to speak fluent Spanish.

He attended the local schools in Fort Sumner and was home schooled by his mother for a time.

He commenced at Santa Rosa High School, where his mother taught English and Spanish, rapidly advancing through three years in just one.

In 1917 he attended Fort Sumner High School, from which he graduated in 1918.

In 1917 Parsons traveled to Roswell, New Mexico, to take the United States Naval Academy exam for one of the appointments by Senator Andrieus A. Jones.

He was only an alternate, but passed the exam while more favored candidates did not, and received the appointment.

As he was only 16, two years younger than most candidates, he was shorter and lighter than the physical standards called for, but managed to convince the examining board to admit him anyway.

He entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1918, and eventually graduated 48th out of 539 in the class of 1922, in which Hyman G. Rickover graduated 107th.

At the time, it was customary for midshipmen to acquire nicknames, and Parsons was called "Deacon", a play on his last name.

This became shortened to "Deak".

A 1922 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Parsons served on a variety of warships beginning with the battleship USS Idaho (BB-42).

He was trained in ordnance and studied ballistics under L. T. E. Thompson at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia.

On graduating in June 1922, Parsons was commissioned as an ensign and posted to the battleship USS Idaho (BB-42), where he was placed in charge of one of the 14-inch gun turrets.

In May 1927, Parsons, now a lieutenant (junior grade), returned to Annapolis, where he commenced a course in ordnance at the Naval Postgraduate School.

He became friends with Lieutenant Jack Crenshaw, a fellow officer attending the same training course.

Jack asked Parsons to be best man at his wedding to Betty Cluverius, the daughter of the Commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard, Rear Admiral Wat Tyler Cluverius Jr., at the Norfolk Navy Chapel.

As best man, Parsons was paired with Betty's maid of honor, her sister Martha.

Parsons and Martha got along well, and in November 1929, they too were married at the Norfolk Navy Chapel.

This time, Jack and Betty Crenshaw were best man and maid of honor.

In July 1933, Parsons became liaison officer between the Bureau of Ordnance and the Naval Research Laboratory.

He became interested in radar and was one of the first to recognize its potential to locate ships and aircraft, and perhaps even track shells in flight.

In September 1940, Parsons and Merle Tuve of the National Defense Research Committee began work on the development of the proximity fuze, an invention that was provided to the US by the UK Tizard Mission, a radar-triggered fuze that would explode a shell in the proximity of the target.

The fuze, eventually known as the VT (variable time) fuze, Mark 32, went into production in 1942.

Parsons was on hand to watch the cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) shoot down the first enemy aircraft with a VT fuze in the Solomon Islands in January 1943.

In June 1943, Parsons joined the Manhattan Project as Associate Director at the Project Y research laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Parsons became responsible for the ordnance aspects of the project, including the design and testing of the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons.

In a reorganization in 1944, he lost responsibility for the implosion-type fission weapon, but retained that for the design and development of the gun-type fission weapon, which eventually became Little Boy.

He was also responsible for the delivery program, codenamed Project Alberta.

He watched the Trinity nuclear test from a B-29.

After the war, Parsons was promoted to the rank of rear admiral without ever having commanded a ship.

He is best known for being the weaponeer on the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

To avoid the possibility of a nuclear explosion if the aircraft crashed and burned on takeoff, he decided to arm the bomb in flight.

While the aircraft was en route to Hiroshima, Parsons climbed into the cramped and dark bomb bay, and inserted the powder charge and detonator.

He was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the mission.

He participated in Operation Crossroads, the nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and later the Operation Sandstone tests at Enewetak Atoll in 1948.

In 1947, he became deputy commander of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project.

He died of a heart attack in 1953.