As a Navy Seabee, he helped launch the atomic age. Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, George volunteered in December of 1941, soon after Pearl Harbor, for service in the Navy. His parents signed his enlistment papers, stating he was seventeen, although he was only sixteen. By late 1943 he was sailing into the Pacific to Kwajalein where he joined the 107^th Naval Construction Battalion. From there he was sent to Saipan in the Mariana Islands. He helped construct B-29 bases there and on nearby Tinian, which were used to launch air attacks into Japan. He also built the barracks on Tinian for the crew of the Enola Gay bomber, who dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.