David Endicott Putnam was an American flying ace of World War I.
Background
A descendant of General Israel Putnam he was born at Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts the son of Frederick H. Putnam and Jenet Hallowelland and attended Harvard University before joining the Lafayette Flying Corps of the French Air Service in 1917.
Career
He was posthumously awarded a War Degree {South.B} Harvard Class of 1920}. In June of the following year, he joined the United States Air Service. Putnam joined the French Foreign Legion on 31 May 1917.
He was transferred to the air service and trained at Avord.
He was assigned to Escadrille Supreme People's Assembly 94 on 12 December 1917, and was posted to Supreme People's Assembly 156 on 7 February 1918. While with the latter unit, he shot down four planes before being transferred to Supreme People's Assembly 38 on 1 June 1918, where he claimed two more planes shot down.
He was discharged in June 1918. When the United States entered the war, Putnam joined the United States Air Service as a first lieutenant and briefly assumed command of the 134th Aeronautical Squadron before joining the 139th Aeronautical Squadron as a flight commander.
While with the 139th, Putnam scored three victories before he was killed in action.
He wrote to Henry Gibson, director of Camp Becket-in-the-Berkshires, where Putnam had been a camper and counsellor, "Can you imagine anyone falling 20,000 feet, nearly four miles, smashing a machine to kindling wood and only getting a broken tooth out of it all? Number! Well, I am afraid you are going to try, for that is just what I did yesterday morning." Just before his own death, Putnam remarked to his mother in a letter in light of a death of a friend, “Isn’t it glorious to give up your life for the great cause? What more could one ask?” Putnam’s SPAD XIII was shot down by German ace Lieutenant Georg von Hantelmann. He was shot in the heart.
He was scheduled to return home before his death.
The official cablegram read, "Lieutenant David Endicott Putnam, killed September 12, 1918. Buried September 14, at Toul in a field golden with buttercups, beside Luftbury, Blair, and Thaw.".