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 and the late 20th century.

A graduate of the College of the City of New York, Hall enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in September 1939.

During World War II he served in Britain where he was awarded the Legion of Merit for the repair of battle-damaged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers.

[4] The family company his father worked for, J. Holtzberg and Sons, went broke during the Great Depression and the banks foreclosed,[3] but Edward gained admission to Townsend Harris Hall Prep School by passing a competitive examination.

He suspected that this was due to then-prevalent antisemitism in the United States, and in 1936 he and his brother Ted, then 11, legally changed their surname to "Hall".

Hall immediately did so, and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant soon after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.

[2] Hall became the officer in charge of the repair of battle-damaged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers aircraft at Base Air Depot 2 at Warton Aerodrome.

Plates that spanned the fractured spar were connected with oversized pins, forced through holes drilled through the plate/spar overlap using extreme hydraulic pressure.

[11][12] Hall's introduction to missiles came near the war's end when he was assigned to acquire intelligence on Germany's wartime propulsion work.

[5] The Technical Intelligence Department then sent him back to Britain to evaluate the capabilities of the Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines that the United Kingdom had sold the Soviet Union for its MiG-15 fighters.

[13] On 22 May 1950, Hall returned to the WADC as the assistant chief of the Non-Rotating Engine Branch of the Power Plant Laboratory,[5][13] which was responsible for rockets and ramjets.

When Convair found out about this, a complaint was lodged with the Secretary of the Air Force, Harold E. Talbott, who asked Boyd for an explanation.

[16][19] As such, he directed the development of engines for the Atlas and Titan ICBMs, and the Thor intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM).

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".

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.

[2] A broken hip in 2005 and other medical problems left him bedridden at his home in Rolling Hills Estates for a year and a half.