George William Daly, Captain, USN (Ret.), 91, died of natural causes on June 21, 2010, at home in Middletown, Delaware.

Born to Anna Glover and John Thomas (Jack) Daly in New York, N.Y., on October 27, 1918, Captain Daly was raised in Great Neck, N.Y., where his father was a judge. He graduated from Chaminade High School in Mineola, N.Y., where he was an exceptional student and outstanding athlete. He then earned an M.E. from Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, N.J., and an M.Ed. from the University of Maryland. He was an avid lifelong student of things technical, educational and historical.

As a 12-year-old, after fixing several broken AM radios, Daly knew he wanted to learn more about the new technology of electronics. Options for classes in Great Neck were limited, so the seventh-grader wrote to the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) for a home-study course, which guided him through many hours of learning electronic principles and practicing Morse code. In 1935, he passed the 10 words per minute Morse code test and the written test for the Class C General license at the FCC offices in New York City. Thus began his interest in amateur radio, which continued for more than 75 years and which included attainment of the highest license (W3WU).

While at the Stevens Institute, Daly enjoyed listening to a local band with the then-unknown singer Frank Sinatra. After graduation, he got a job as an efficiency expert at RCA Manufacturing in Camden, N.J., where he met his future wife, Frances Chickachop.

Captain Daly’s consuming interest in electronics and education shaped much of his professional career of 27 years in the U.S. Navy and continued into the years after his retirement. In 1941, Daly was given a commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve and soon thereafter was upgraded into the Regular Navy. He was posted to the Norfolk Navy Yard, where as the first radar officer at the yard, he supervised all the early radar installations there, including air search, navigation and fire control; he then taught engineering at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. In the late 1940s and in the 1950s, he served as department head at the Bureau of Ships and at the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Naval Shipyard. From 1960 to 1962, he held the post of deputy chief of the Office of Industrial Relations at the Pentagon. In this capacity he directed all labor relations programs for the U.S. Navy under President John F. Kennedy’s executive order providing labor groups with exclusive bargaining rights in naval activities. He retired in 1967 as the director of the Material Control Division for the Navy in Washington, D.C.

Teaching was his second great interest. He first taught at Montgomery College, in Rockville, Md., then at the Department of Technical Education and Industrial Technology at the University of Maryland, and later as a volunteer instructor and examiner for the ARRL during his early retirement years in Florida.

Captain Daly spent his final years surrounded by his family and his beloved books and periodicals. He is survived by Frances, his wife of nearly 68 years, Francis X. Daly, his brother, and his six children and their spouses, Joan and Martin Mason of Odessa, Del.; George, Jr., and Mary Anne Daly of Mill Valley, Calif.; Mary Ann and Paul West of Berkeley Heights, N.J.; Barbara and Gerhard Gnaedig of Greenwich, Conn.; John and Taylor Daly of Atlanta, Ga.; and Peter and Patricia Daly of Clarksburg, Md. At the time of his death, he had 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his sister, Marie Porreco, and a granddaughter, Mary Landels Daly.

A viewing will be held on Friday, June 25, 11am, followed by a funeral mass at 12pm at St. Joseph’s Church in Middletown, Del.  Interment will be at St. Mary’s Cemetery, in Greenwich, Conn. on Saturday, June 26 at 12pm. 

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Tutwiler Clinic, 205 Alma Street, Tutwiler, MS, 38963 - http://tutwilerclinic.org/