More detail on this person: Army Aviation Hall of Fame Member Was a Veteran of Three Wars
Retired Army Maj. Gen. George W. Putnam helped develop plans to retrieve injured troops in Vietnam.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
George W. Putnam, 89, a retired Army major general who was a veteran of World War II, Korea and
Vietnam and who held command positions with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with a
cavalry unit in Vietnam, died Aug. 6 at his home in Arlington County. He had congestive heart
failure and cancer. Gen. Putnam served in the Army for 46 years, beginning as a draftee in 1941
during World War II. He retired in 1987 as a two-star general, based in southern Europe for NATO.
He received his officer's commission early in World War II and served as operations officer for a
howitzer battalion in France and Germany. After the war, he was a part of the occupation force in
Japan. He later served a tour in Korea and did three tours in Vietnam, the final one as commander
of the 1st Air Cavalry Division during the Tet Offensive in 1968. In his career, he also oversaw
the Army aviation school in Fort Rucker, Ala., and helped develop plans for using helicopters to go
behind enemy lines in Vietnam and retrieve injured troops.
After his retirement, Gen. Putnam returned to the Pentagon to work as a civilian adviser until 1991.
George Washington Putnam was born in Fort Fairfield, Maine, and began his military service as a
member of the Maine National Guard in 1936. In Japan after World War II, he met and married his
first wife, Elaine Anderson Putnam, who died in 1973. In 1995, Gen. Putnam married Helen Guerin, the
widow of a close friend, Army Col. Vince Guerin, who had died in 1976. Gen. Putnam was a member of
the Army Aviation Historical Society and Army Aviation Association of America, where he worked in
the association's scholarship programs. A member of the Army Aviation Hall of Fame, with more than
1,600 hours flown in combat, Gen. Putnam was a judge in helicopter and aviation competitions around
the world.
A son from his first marriage, Dr. James M. Putnam, died in 2005.
Survivors include his wife, of Arlington; a son from his first marriage, J. Glenn Putnam of Yardley,
Pa.; four stepchildren, Leslie MacCallum of Alexandria, Philip Mahine of New York, Jeanne Duffie of
Lovettsville and Vincent A. Guerin of Richmond; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
From: Rick Rojas, The Washington Post
This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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