JAMES B. GINN, LTJG, USN

James Ginn '38

Date of birth: May 3, 1914

Date of death: December 7, 1941

Age: 27

Lucky Bag

From the 1938 Lucky Bag:

JAMES BLACKBURN GINN

Bayard, Nebraska

Jimmie, Gimie

The state of Nebraska gave Jimmie his start, New York polished him, and Plebe Dago nearly finished him. Bells have been his chief complaint during the last four years. They were always interrupting him. Possessed of an unusual ability to concentrate on his work, Jimmie always heard formations and releases with disgusted surprise; the most unwelcome and most persistent of all bells, reveille, never came at an opportune moment, for Jimmie sleeps as well as he works. Is he a snake or a Red Mike? All we can say to this is that we don't advise you to introduce your drag to him, for what a smile Jimmie has. So, all in all, Jim has what it takes to get along in this world, and we are agreed that he will climb well above the middle rung.

Glee Club 4, 3, 2, 1; Reception Committee 3, 2; Log 3, 2, 1; News Editor 1; Crew 3; Quarter Deck 4, 3, 2, 1; Basketball 4, 3; C.P.O.

JAMES BLACKBURN GINN

Bayard, Nebraska

Jimmie, Gimie

The state of Nebraska gave Jimmie his start, New York polished him, and Plebe Dago nearly finished him. Bells have been his chief complaint during the last four years. They were always interrupting him. Possessed of an unusual ability to concentrate on his work, Jimmie always heard formations and releases with disgusted surprise; the most unwelcome and most persistent of all bells, reveille, never came at an opportune moment, for Jimmie sleeps as well as he works. Is he a snake or a Red Mike? All we can say to this is that we don't advise you to introduce your drag to him, for what a smile Jimmie has. So, all in all, Jim has what it takes to get along in this world, and we are agreed that he will climb well above the middle rung.

Glee Club 4, 3, 2, 1; Reception Committee 3, 2; Log 3, 2, 1; News Editor 1; Crew 3; Quarter Deck 4, 3, 2, 1; Basketball 4, 3; C.P.O.

Loss

James was lost "in an air crash 10 miles west of Barbers Pt".

From naval aviation historian Richard Leonard via email on February 9, 2018:

NAS Pensacola attached for HTA flight training, 8/12/1940

NAS Pensacola designated NA # 7169, 2/20/1941

Date of rank LTJG from 1 Jul 1941 USN Register, 6/2/19411968

VO-4 USS Maryland (BB-46) KIFA, 12/7/1941

From USS Maryland after action report (15 Dec 1941):

C. (1) OWN LOSSES
Deaths: Officers -1; Men - 2.
Seriously injured Officers - 0; Men - 3.
Slightly injured Officers - 0; Men - 10.
Subsequent to the attack Lieut.(jg) James B. Ginn, U.S. Navy, aviator of the VO-4 unit attached to this ship was killed in a crash while on patrol duty.

From message traffic in CinCPacFlt comm log, 8 December 1941 at 1700 local:

COM OBS WING 1 to MARYLAND: My disp 081810 no further information resulted from todays search. Ref: OS2U3 airplane 5285 Lt.(jg) James B. Ginn, USN, wife Harriett Ginn, phone 67434 Pensacola St., Honolulu, and William Russe B. Roberts, RM.2c. USN, mother 121 W. 7th St. Los Angeles, Calif. Missing Dec. 8.

Other Information

From the Bayard Transcript, Nebraska on December 25, 1941 (via researcher Kathy Franz):

James Blackburn Ginn was born at Fort Morgan, Colorado, May 3, 1914, and resided in Fort Morgan until his parents Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Ginn, came to Gering, Nebraska in December, 1915, when construction of the Gering factory was begun.
Jimmie, as he was familiarly known by his friends and associates, attended grade school in Mitchell, Scottsbluff and Bayard, in addition to one year of high school in 1933, and in August of that year was appointed to the United States Naval Academy by Senator William H. Thompson of Grand Island. His entrance to the Naval Academy was scheduled for June, 1934, and during the intervening period he attended the Devett Preparatory School at Washington, D. C.
After completing the prescribed four year course at the Naval Academy he was graduated with the class of 1938 in June of that year, and was immediately commissioned as Ensign and assigned to the Cruiser U. S. S. Pensacola. After serving one year aboard this ship he was transferred to the Destroyer Downes, and remained on board this ship until August, 1940 when he was transferred to Pensacola, Florida for naval air training.
Immediately preceding his entrance to the Pensacola training station he was married to Miss Harriett Peterson of Chadron, Nebraska on August 7, 1940.
After finishing the air training course at Pensacola, he was transferred to the west coast and assigned to the aviation unit aboard the battleship U. S. S. Maryland, and was a member of that unit at the time of his death.

James is buried in Nebraska. His wife was listed as next of kin.

James is listed on the killed in action panel at the front of Memorial Hall.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.