William James McGinty

Airforce Colonel. Bronze Star & Purple Heart recipient.

Buried in Arlington Cemetery.

William J. McGinty - 5/31/95

Born in Trenton, Ontario, Canada; grew up in Pennsylvania; trained as a fighter pilot by the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941; Mac survived and returned to flying after a crash in a Spitfire in which he sustained spinal injuries that kept him bed-ridden and in therapy for a year.

He transferred to the Army Air Forces in 1942; was credited with three and a half German aircraft shot down during 85 missions; and was a P-51 squadron commander in World War II. Captain McGinty, at the age of twenty-six in 1945, had achieved what most people would consider a legendary life-time. But, there was a lot more to come.

Mac entered Public Affairs in 1948 as an Information Officer at Headquarters Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He was Deputy and Acting Director of Information for Far East Air Forces, Tokyo, during the Korean War years of 1950-1952.

During his career he was instrumental in putting the Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile and space programs before the American people.

McGinty battled the public affairs bureaucracies and biases of the Department of Defense and the Military Assistance Command - Vietnam (MACV) in 1965-66 to bring the Air Force's story to the American people.

Mac's Public Affairs expertise was recognized in 1966 when the Aviation and Space Writers Association presented him the Orville Wright Award. He retired as a colonel in 1967 and was Director of Public Affairs for The Boeing Company in Washington, DC. until 1985.

Pursuing the concern for family, friends, and people in general that he had shown throughout his life, Bill McGinty was an active member of the Gideons International. He died of a heart attack at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, May 31.