Selva Eugene McGinty
(1923 - 1996)
San Bernardino, San Bernardino County, California United States
Moab, Grand County, Utah United States 84532
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His training behind him, Lt. McGinty departed for the Pacific Theater of Operators with VMF-441, Marine Air Group 31, flying F4U Corsairs prepared for the Marshall Islands aboard the jeep carrier U.S.S. , the air group landed on Yontan Airfield Okinawa on 7 April 1945.
Nine days later, McGinty scored his first victories, two Val dive bombers and a Mitsubishi Zeke fighter. On 11 May he shot down a Betty bomber carrying a Baka (manned flying bomb) beneath it's wing. The Baka dropped clear and then rocketed up in front of McGinty's Corsair. As McGinty poured .50 caliber lead into the rocket bomb, it too exploded. Unfortunately, the Baka bomb was highly classified at the time and McGinty recieved credit for only the Betty. Less than one month later on 8 June, he destroyed a Betty, to become officially recognized as an ace, not yet 21 years old.
A week later, Lt. McGinty departed Okinawa for stateside assignment. After 120 strike missions, his combat tour was over. He remained in the Marines, however, until 26 June 1952, when he was discharged as a Captain.
For the next 23 years, McGinty flew as an executive pilot with the Arabian-American Oil Company in Dhahran Saudi Arabia, finally retiring in 1975.
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Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Selva's lifetime.
In 1923, in the year that Selva Eugene McGinty was born, on August 2nd, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States due to the sudden death of Warren G. Harding. After the scandals of the Harding presidency, Coolidge restored public confidence and was very popular. He won the Presidential election in 1924 but declined to run again in 1928.
In 1933, this person was merely 10 years old when the day after being inaugurated, the new President, Franklin Roosevelt, declared a four-day bank holiday to stop people from withdrawing their money from shaky banks (the bank run). Within 5 days of his administration, the Emergency Banking Act was passed - reorganizing banks and closing insolvent ones. In his first 100 days, he asked Congress to repeal Prohibition (which they did), signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, signed legislation that paid commodity farmers to leave their fields fallow, thus ending surpluses and boosting prices, signed a bill that gave workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions as well as suspending some antitrust laws and establishing a federally funded Public Works Administration, and won passage of 12 other major laws that helped the economy.
In 1942, this person was 19 years old when from January 7th through April 9th, the Battle of Bataan was fought in the Philippines. At the end of the battle, the U.S. and Filipino forces surrendered and a three-year occupation of the Philippines by Japan began. Between 60,000 and 80,000 American and Filipino soldiers surrendered and were marched around 60 to 69 miles - most were beaten, abused, or killed. Named the Bataan Death March, it was later declared to be a war crime.
In 1987, at the age of 64 years old, Selva was alive when was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.
In 1996, in the year of Selva Eugene McGinty's passing, on April 3rd, Theodore Kaczynski (nicknamed the Unabomber) was arrested. His mailed or hand-delivered bombs, sent between 1978 and 1995, killed three people and injured 23 others. Diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, Kaczynski is serving 8 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
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