Posted on May 12, 2022
Remembering CAPT George McGinnis, USN, Cryptologist
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Interview with Captain George McGinnis:
This is an interview with Captain George McGinnis, U.S. Navy retired. The interview occurred on 9 December, 2002 at Corry Station, Naval Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida. The interviewer was Peg Fiehtner.
PF: Is it all right if I refer to you as Captain?
GM: George.
PF: George, all right. I’d like to start this by asking you what brought you into the Navy in the first place – Naval Reserve as I understand it – in 1941?
GM: Okay, it’s hard probably for anyone today to realize the situation that was occurring over in Europe starting in ’39 when the war between Britain and Germany started, but it made quite an imprint here in the United States. It was obvious to most of us that war was going to occur. If you didn’t realize it yourself, your friends who had been in the military at some time or other were telling you that. In my case, I was in college at Santa Barbara in California and one of my Professors was a Reserve Officer, Naval Reserve Officer and sometime back in ’41, he said, you know, you ought to start thinking about getting into the Navy and getting in early because if you’re too late, all the good jobs will have been taken and I thought this was a pretty good idea. He talked to several other people in a kind of selected group that he’d somehow figured out and I was the only one who took him up on it.
This is an interview with Captain George McGinnis, U.S. Navy retired. The interview occurred on 9 December, 2002 at Corry Station, Naval Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida. The interviewer was Peg Fiehtner.
PF: Is it all right if I refer to you as Captain?
GM: George.
PF: George, all right. I’d like to start this by asking you what brought you into the Navy in the first place – Naval Reserve as I understand it – in 1941?
GM: Okay, it’s hard probably for anyone today to realize the situation that was occurring over in Europe starting in ’39 when the war between Britain and Germany started, but it made quite an imprint here in the United States. It was obvious to most of us that war was going to occur. If you didn’t realize it yourself, your friends who had been in the military at some time or other were telling you that. In my case, I was in college at Santa Barbara in California and one of my Professors was a Reserve Officer, Naval Reserve Officer and sometime back in ’41, he said, you know, you ought to start thinking about getting into the Navy and getting in early because if you’re too late, all the good jobs will have been taken and I thought this was a pretty good idea. He talked to several other people in a kind of selected group that he’d somehow figured out and I was the only one who took him up on it.
Remembering CAPT George McGinnis, USN, Cryptologist
Posted from stationhypo.comPosted in these groups: 
Cryptology
Corry Station
Pensacola
WWII World War Two
Naval/Maritime History
Cryptology Corry Station Pensacola WWII World War Two Naval/Maritime History
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 2
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel R.I.P. Captain George McGinnis.
..."PF: I take it you have no regrets for your Navy career.
GM: No, I really don’t. I have some things that I wish I could have somehow prevented from happening. I guess everybody does. I told you I preferred duty at NSA and I did. I was offered jobs over there several different times, but I said, no, I’d rather go to NSA. I think I disappointed Ralph Cook but when I was Commanding Officer here at Corry, I had one more tour and Ralph Cook and I had been friends for many years and he said, well, I want you to come back and Head the equivalent of GX. G40 I think it’s called today. I said, well Ralph, that’s a good job and I appreciate that, I said, but you know I really don’t want it and I didn’t because I knew it was a nothing job. Paper pushing job and I really don’t like those jobs. I want to be able to do something. That’s when I ended up in NSA R&D and was there the longest I’d been anywhere. I was there six or seven years. That was really a wonderful job. The kind of thing I was taught to do from the very beginning but hadn’t done much of except when I was in GX but I wasn’t able to use those skills and I finally ended up in R&D. One of my projects in R&D is still in existence down in Cudjoe Key, Florida. A project that was set up in 1965 and it’s still going on down there.
PF: Well, we don’t want to get too involved in that then.
GM: It’s just above Key West.
PF: I think we’ve done remarkably well. I thank you very much."
..."PF: I take it you have no regrets for your Navy career.
GM: No, I really don’t. I have some things that I wish I could have somehow prevented from happening. I guess everybody does. I told you I preferred duty at NSA and I did. I was offered jobs over there several different times, but I said, no, I’d rather go to NSA. I think I disappointed Ralph Cook but when I was Commanding Officer here at Corry, I had one more tour and Ralph Cook and I had been friends for many years and he said, well, I want you to come back and Head the equivalent of GX. G40 I think it’s called today. I said, well Ralph, that’s a good job and I appreciate that, I said, but you know I really don’t want it and I didn’t because I knew it was a nothing job. Paper pushing job and I really don’t like those jobs. I want to be able to do something. That’s when I ended up in NSA R&D and was there the longest I’d been anywhere. I was there six or seven years. That was really a wonderful job. The kind of thing I was taught to do from the very beginning but hadn’t done much of except when I was in GX but I wasn’t able to use those skills and I finally ended up in R&D. One of my projects in R&D is still in existence down in Cudjoe Key, Florida. A project that was set up in 1965 and it’s still going on down there.
PF: Well, we don’t want to get too involved in that then.
GM: It’s just above Key West.
PF: I think we’ve done remarkably well. I thank you very much."
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