This timeline reconstructs Arval's World War II service from
the Honorable Discharge and branch-appropriate National Archives unit records, searched
by service number. Each entry cites its source; items marked
Newly discovered were recovered from the records.
Map of Service
Route reconstructed from confirmed locations.
Service stops
Shawnee, Okla.home
Fort Sill, Okla.inducted 7 Feb 1942
Camp Barkeley, Tex.Co B, 54th Med Tng Bn
Denver, Colo.Fitzsimons General Hospital
Cincinnati, Ohio1555th SU, ASTP
Camp Crowder, Mo.Central Signal Corps RTC
Vint Hill Farms, Va.traffic analyst training
Camp Polk, La.97th Signal Bn
Camp Bowie, Tex.91st Sig Opn Bn
Camp Chaffee, Ark.Separation Center
Route notes
1 → 2Inducted 7 Feb 1942
2 → 3Medical training, Feb 1942
3 → 41 May 1942
4 → 5To the ASTP by Oct 1943
5 → 6To the Signal Corps, Mar 1944
6 → 7Left 29 Apr, reported 2 May 1944
7 → 8To the 97th Signal Bn, Jul 1944
8 → 9Cadre for the 91st Sig Opn Bn, activated 25 Aug 1944
9 → 10To the Separation Center, 23 Nov 1944
10 → 1Discharged 26 Nov 1944; home to Shawnee
First time here?
How to read this service timeline
This page brings together records created for different purposes. The labels below tell you what kind of evidence supports each entry; open either guide when a record or military term is unfamiliar.
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Confirmed — Discharge
A personal military record supports the entry.
Confirmed — Unit record
A record created by his unit names him or documents the unit’s activity.
Context
Helpful background, clearly separated from personal evidence.
Newly discovered
Information recovered during this research, rather than supplied at the start.
How to read a Morning Report
Morning Reports were daily administrative records prepared by individual Army and Army Air Forces units. They generally recorded changes—such as arrivals, transfers, promotions, illness, or return to duty—not a complete list of everyone present.
MORNING REPORT · SAMPLE
1Organization Company A, 123rd Infantry
2Station or location Camp Example, Virginia
3Date 14 September 1944
4Section Personnel changes
5Pvt Smith, John A., 35123456 6asgd fr Hq Co per SO 187, Hq 123d Inf
In plain English
Private John A. Smith, identified by Army Serial Number 35123456, was assigned to Company A from Headquarters Company under Special Orders No. 187.
1Organization: the company, hospital, squadron, or other unit filing the report.
2Station or location: where that unit reported from on that date.
3Report date: the date of the report, which may differ from the effective date of a change.
4Section: the part of the form containing personnel changes or the unit’s record of events.
5Soldier entry: usually rank, name, and Army Serial Number.
6Change and authority: what happened and the order authorizing it.
asgd
assigned
atchd
attached
trfd
transferred
fr
from
aptd
appointed
EM
enlisted men
SO
Special Orders
GO
General Orders
orgn
organization
sta
station
Common military and research terms
Army Serial Number (ASN)
The unique service number used to distinguish one soldier from others with similar names.
Discharge or separation paper
The document issued when a service member left active service. For many WWII Army enlisted soldiers, this is WD AGO Form 53-55. It summarizes service but is not a day-by-day history.
Morning Report
An Army unit’s daily administrative report. It usually lists people whose status changed, not every person in the unit.
Unit record
A document created by a military organization. It may name the soldier directly or provide context about his unit; the timeline states which applies.
OMPF or “201 file”
The service member’s Official Military Personnel File. Many Army and Air Force files were damaged or destroyed in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire.
Unit and final unit
A unit is the organization in which someone served. The final unit is the organization shown at separation; it may not be the only unit in the service history.
Rank or grade
The service member’s level in the military hierarchy. A timeline may show changes in rank over time.
MOS
Military Occupational Specialty—the Army’s classification for a soldier’s primary military job.
Assigned and attached
Assigned means formally placed in a unit. Attached usually means serving with a unit temporarily while belonging administratively elsewhere.
Special Orders and General Orders
Official directives used to authorize personnel actions, awards, organizational changes, and other decisions.
Campaign credit
Official recognition for service connected with a named campaign. It does not, by itself, describe a service member’s individual actions.
Station or location
The place from which a unit filed a report. It does not automatically prove that every member was physically present there.
Source citation
The note beneath a timeline entry identifying the record or records that support it.
Service Timeline
21 min
Confirmed — Record
June 4, 1909
Born in Mangum, Greer County, Oklahoma
Arval Alvin Putnam is born at Mangum, in Greer County, in the far south-west corner of Oklahoma, to Alfred and Juliette Putnam.
In the depths of the Depression he joins the Civilian Conservation Corps, the federal work program that put young men into camps building roads, parks and shelterbelts. He stays with the CCC until he moves to Shawnee.
Enrolls at Oklahoma Baptist University, and sings in the first Bison Glee Club
He enrolls at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. The university's Bison Glee Club is founded that same year, and he is a member of the first one. He goes on to sing in the University Baptist Church choir for fifty years.
Helps build the Tabernacle at University Baptist Church
His church, short of money for a brick sanctuary, puts up a temporary wooden Tabernacle with volunteer labor instead. The church's own written history names him among the workers.
Registers for the draft at the Pottawatomie County courthouse
Fourteen months before Pearl Harbor, Congress passes the first peacetime draft in American history, and on one day in October every man between 21 and 35 signs on. Arval Putnam registers at Local Board No. 1, Pottawatomie County, at the county court house in Shawnee. The registrar, Mrs Norton Stanard, turns the card over and writes down what he looks like: five feet seven, one hundred and thirty pounds, gray eyes, brown hair, a ruddy complexion. Under “other obvious physical characteristics that will aid in identification” she writes nothing at all.
On the front he fills in the rest himself. He is thirty-one, born June 4, 1909 at Mangum, Oklahoma, living at 2215 N. Chapman, University Station, Shawnee. He has no telephone. Asked for his employer he writes “Student at Oklahoma Baptist University”. Asked for the person who will always know his address, he gives his mother, Mrs. Mary Juliette Putnam, at the same house. Then he signs it: Arval A. Putnam. The card carries a serial number, 231, and an order number, 267. Neither is his Army serial number. Draft boards numbered their own registrants; the Army numbered its soldiers separately.
The front of the card, filled in and signed in his own hand.The back: the registrar's description of him, fourteen months before he was called up.
Source: Selective Service registration card, D.S.S. Form 1 (First Registration, 16 October 1940), both sides. Local Board No. 1, Pottawatomie County, County Court House, Shawnee, Oklahoma. Image from Fold3.
Confirmed — Discharge
February 7, 1942
Inducted into the Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Two months after Pearl Harbor, and three and a half years after he enrolled at Oklahoma Baptist, he is called up. His enlistment record lists him as a selectee, meaning the draft board sent him, and he is enlisted for the duration of the war plus six months. He is thirty-two years old, single, and gives his home as Pottawatomie County. He enters as a Private, with his branch recorded as “branch immaterial”, the standard entry for a man not yet assigned. The record gives him his Army serial number, 38079230, which appears beside his name on the Army pages below. His obituary gives February 2. The Army's enlistment record and the Veterans Administration index both give February 7, and that is the date used here.
Camp Barkeley, Texas — Company B, 54th Medical Training Battalion
Two weeks after his induction, the Fort Sill reception center sends him to the Medical Replacement Training Center at Camp Barkeley, Texas. The center's order of February 22 records that he reported on February 21 and attaches him, unassigned, to Company B, 54th Medical Training Battalion, with quarters and meals in Company E of the 57th. His line on the order reads “Putnam, Arval A. 38079230”. Two days later a second order moves the same men in with their own company. Newly discovered.
The Camp Barkeley order of February 22, 1942. His line, “Putnam, Arval A. 38079230”, is in the last group, under the Fort Sill order that sent him. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Special Orders No. 48, February 24, 1942, paragraph 11. “Putnam, Arval A. 38079230” is in the right-hand column. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co B, 54th Medical Training Bn — NARA Roll 2100, image 805 (Special Orders No. 46, Medical Replacement Training Center, Camp Barkeley, Texas, 22 February 1942, par. 8, citing Par 9, SO No. 51, Hq Reception Center #1817, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 20 February 1942 (NAID 437994295)); Special Orders No. 48, same headquarters, 24 February 1942, par. 11 (same roll, image 394); the Fort Sill order is also filmed at NAID 437989741, image 456, and NAID 437995296, image 1272
Confirmed — Unit record
May 1, 1942
Transferred to Fitzsimons General Hospital, Denver, Colorado
After ten weeks at Camp Barkeley, the company's record for May 1 lists nineteen trainees who left at 8:15 that morning, transferred to Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Pvt. Putnam is the sixth name. Fitzsimons was one of the Army's largest hospitals and also ran a school for enlisted medical technicians. The entry does not say which duty took him there, and the next page that names him is the University of Cincinnati roster of October 1943. Newly discovered.This entry gives surnames only. Thirteen of the eighteen men listed with him appear by full name and serial number on his Camp Barkeley orders of February 1942, which is how we know this Putnam is Arval.
The company record for May 1, 1942. “Putnam” is in the first column of the first entry, under Pvt. O'Bryan. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Medical Replacement Training Center, Camp Barkeley, Texas (company record of events) — NARA Roll 2100, image 867 (entry of 1 May 1942 citing par. 6, Special Orders No. 107, Hq MRTC, 25 April 1942 (NAID 437994295)); the men's full names and serial numbers: Special Orders No. 48, Hq MRTC, 24 February 1942, par. 11 (same roll, image 394, shown on the card above)
Confirmed — Record
October 5, 1943
Marries Anna Elizabeth Hall at Poteau, Oklahoma
Twenty months into his service he marries Anna Elizabeth Hall at Poteau, in LeFlore County. He is in the United States that autumn. The marriage lasts fifty-seven years, and the date is cut into the bronze marker they share.
University of Cincinnati — Staff Sergeant, and eight days' furlough
By late 1943 the Army has him at the University of Cincinnati, in Company L of the 1555th Service Unit, Army Specialized Training Program. The ASTP sent selected soldiers to college campuses to study engineering, languages and medicine. He is now a Staff Sergeant. On November 30 the Army grants him eight days of furlough, December 4 to 11. Newly discovered.
“Putnam, Arval A., S/Sgt 38079230”, second name on the list: furlough from December 4 to 11, 1943. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The company roster from October 1943. “Putnam, Arval A S/Sgt 38079230” is in the right-hand column. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co L, 1555th Service Unit, ASTP, University of Cincinnati — NARA Roll 0213, image 401 (Special Orders No. 51, Hq Army Training Units, University of Cincinnati, 30 November 1943 (NAID 458301488)); the company's October 1943 roster (NAID 452136827, image 2740) (the roster's first page is image 2726)
Confirmed — Unit record
March 13, 1944
The ASTP is cut back, and he is transferred into the Signal Corps
In early 1944 the Army cuts the Army Specialized Training Program back and returns most of its students to the field. A Special Order at Cincinnati relieves his group, which it labels “ASTP Trainees, FA&L”, the Army's abbreviation for its Foreign Area and Language curriculum, and transfers the men in grade to the Central Signal Corps Replacement Training Center at Camp Crowder, Missouri. The order lists “S/Sgt Arval A. Putnam 38079230”. With this order he becomes a Signal Corps soldier. The order does not say which language his class studied. Newly discovered.
The transfer order of March 13, 1944. His line is in the right-hand column: “S/Sgt Arval A. Putnam 38079230”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — 1555th Service Unit, ASTP, University of Cincinnati — NARA Roll 0332, image 422 (Special Orders No. 27, Hq Army Training Units, University of Cincinnati, 13 March 1944, par. 1 (NAID 465801234))
Confirmed — Unit record
March 17 – April 29, 1944
Six weeks of Signal Corps training at Camp Crowder, Missouri
He reports at Camp Crowder on March 17 with the rest of the Cincinnati group and is attached to Company A, 30th Signal Training Battalion. On April 13 the group moves to Company D of the same battalion for a one-week Basic Refresher Course that begins April 17. The company Morning Report for April 29 records him leaving at 1:30 that afternoon with three other trainees, transferred to the 848th Signal Training Battalion, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Newly discovered.
Camp Crowder Special Orders No. 66, March 17, 1944. “S Sgt PUTNAM, ARVAL A, 38079230” is in the right-hand column of paragraph 14. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Special Orders No. 89, April 13, 1944: the move to Company D and the refresher course. His line is in the left-hand column. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The Morning Report of April 29, 1944. “38079230 Putnam S/Sgt” is the fourth line. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co A and Co D, 30th Signal Training Bn, Central Signal Corps Replacement Training Center — NARA Roll 0012, image 62 (Morning Report ending 2400, 29 April 1944, Camp Crowder, Missouri (NAID 467432583)); Special Orders No. 66, Hq CSCRTC, Camp Crowder, 17 March 1944, par. 14 (NARA Roll 0197, image 1132, NAID 465413782); Special Orders No. 89, Hq CSCRTC, Camp Crowder, 13 April 1944, par. 31 (NARA Roll 0011, image 2238, NAID 467431953); the same orders and report are filmed again at NAID 465414783, image 2052; NAID 467431953, image 2433; NAID 467432583, images 19 and 347; and NAID 467430952, image 1612
Confirmed — Unit record
May 2, 1944
Sent to Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia, for training
Three days after leaving Camp Crowder he reports at Vint Hill Farms Station, Warrenton, Virginia. The station's order of May 2 carries him as assigned to the 848th Signal Training Battalion at Fort Monmouth and places him on detached service with the station's Company A (Provisional) “for training”. Fort Monmouth was his unit of record for these ten weeks and kept its own page on him, headed “Team IAE-9”; every page that places him in person places him at Vint Hill Farms. Newly discovered.Vint Hill Farms was the Army's radio intercept station in Virginia and the home of the Signal Corps school that trained its intercept and codebreaking specialists.
The Vint Hill Farms order of May 2, 1944. “S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38079230” is in the left-hand column of paragraph 3. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Fort Monmouth’s Morning Report of July 10, 1944, the unit of record. “Putnam (DS) 38079230 S Sgt”: on detached service at Vint Hill Farms, now transferred to the 97th Signal Battalion. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — 848th Signal Training Bn, Fort Monmouth, N.J., on detached service at Vint Hill Farms Station — NARA Roll 0216, image 1308 (Special Orders No. 105, Hq Vint Hill Farms Station, Warrenton, Virginia, 2 May 1944, par. 3 (NAID 473440322)); Morning Report ending 2400, 10 July 1944, Team IAE-9, Eastern Signal Corps Unit Training Center, Fort Monmouth, N.J. (NAID 479750512, image 669); station background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Hill_Farms_Station; the same order is filmed again at image 1341, and Fort Monmouth's May 1944 entries of the same assignment are at NAID 473786757, images 1635, 1640, 1642 and 1876, and NAID 473790774, images 2190, 2196, 2275 and 2277
Confirmed — Unit record
July 10–14, 1944
Classified a Traffic Analyst, German, and ordered to the 97th Signal Battalion
His training at Vint Hill Farms ends with a new job title. The station's order of July 10 lists him with the military occupational specialty 6709, which the Army's 1944 classification manual defines as Traffic Analyst, German: a soldier who works on “radio traffic intercepted from the German military communications system”, reconstructing the enemy's radio networks from call signs, operating procedures and frequencies, and who “must have cryptographic clearance”. All six men on his paragraph carry the same specialty. The order transfers them, in grade, to the 97th Signal Battalion at Camp Polk, Louisiana.
The detachment's Morning Report of July 12 puts the six on the road, “directed to proceed to the 97th Sig Bn Camp Polk La”, effective July 15, and the report of July 14 closes the posting. It is headed “Det, 2nd Sig Serv Bn” at “Vint Hill Farms Sta, Warrenton, Va”, the detachment stationed there, and the first name on it is his: Putnam Arval A 38079230 S/Sgt. The clerk records him and five others, all attached from another organization, as transferred and dropped from the station's strength. Newly discovered.The specialty is the Army's description of the job he was trained and classified for. The pages do not describe his daily work.
Vint Hill Farms Special Orders No. 161, July 10, 1944. Paragraph 9 opens with “S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38079230 6709”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The detachment’s Morning Report of July 12, 1944. “Putnam Arval A 38079230 S/Sgt” heads the six men sent to the 97th Signal Battalion at Camp Polk. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.His line at the top of the Morning Report for July 14, 1944. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Det, 2nd Signal Service Battalion, Signal Corps — NARA Roll 0409, image 1055 (Morning Report ending 2400, 14 July 1944, Vint Hill Farms Station, Warrenton, Virginia (NAID 480145460)); Special Orders No. 161, Hq Vint Hill Farms Station, 10 July 1944, par. 9 (same roll, image 1037); Morning Report ending 2400, 12 July 1944, same detachment (same roll, image 1040); War Department Technical Manual TM 12-427, Military Occupational Classification of Enlisted Personnel, 12 July 1944, page 130, https://archive.org/details/TM12-427
Confirmed — Unit record
July 17 – August 25, 1944
97th Signal Battalion — Camp Polk, Louisiana
He joins the 97th Signal Battalion at Camp Polk, Louisiana at ten o'clock on the night of July 17, with the five men who left Vint Hill Farms on his order. Four days later the battalion headquarters grants him thirteen days of furlough, and its Morning Report of August 3 records him back: “Putnam, Arval A … SSgt 709 … Fur to Dy”, with specialty 709, Traffic Analyst. The clerk typed his serial number wrong on three of these pages, and the report of August 4 enters a correction restoring 38079230. On August 25 he appears on the headquarters list again as a Staff Sergeant. Nine lines below him is Charles R. Ault, who left Vint Hill Farms on the same order. Newly discovered.
The Morning Report of July 17, 1944, page 1: “Putnam, Arval A … SSgt 709”, with Johnson and Brewen from his Vint Hill Farms order below him. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Page 2 of the same report: “Above 6 EM Asgd to Co fr Vint Hills Farms Warrenton, Va … Jd Co 2200”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.July 21, 1944: “Putnam, Arval A … SSgt 709 Dy to Fur 13 Days”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The Morning Report of August 3, 1944: “Putnam, Arval A … SSgt 709 … Fur to Dy”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.August 4, 1944: the clerk’s correction. “SHOULD BE Putnam, Arval A 38079230 SSgt 709”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.“Putnam, Arval A. 38079230 S Sgt 709”, fourth line of the August 25 report. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Hq & Hq Co, 97th Signal Battalion, Signal Corps — NARA Roll 0243, image 2404 (Morning Report ending 2400, 25 August 1944, Camp Polk, Louisiana (NAID 565163680)); Morning Report ending 2400, 17 July 1944, same unit, pages 1 and 2 (NAID 479023108, images 391 and 392); Morning Report ending 2400, 21 July 1944 (NAID 479023108, image 396); Morning Report ending 2400, 3 August 1944 (NAID 565163680, image 2379); Morning Report ending 2400, 4 August 1944, correction (NAID 565163680, image 2380)
Confirmed — Unit record
August 22–28, 1944
Chosen as cadre for a new battalion, and moved to Camp Bowie, Texas
On August 22 the Fourth Army's Special Troops at Camp Polk name officers and enlisted men of the 97th Signal Battalion as the cadre, the experienced nucleus, of a new unit: the 91st Signal Operation Battalion, to be activated at Camp Bowie, Texas on August 25. “S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38 079 230” is on the list. Six days later the new battalion's first complete roster of Company A, filed with its Morning Report of August 28 at Camp Bowie, carries him as a Staff Sergeant, specialty 709, at his new post in Texas. Newly discovered.
Special Orders No. 200, Camp Polk, August 22, 1944: the cadre for the 91st Signal Operation Battalion. “S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38 079 230 (709)” is in the lower half of the list. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The complete roster of Company A, 91st Signal Operation Battalion, Camp Bowie, August 28, 1944. “Putnam, Arval A. 38 079 230 S Sgt 709”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Hq, 91st Signal Operation Battalion, Camp Bowie, Texas — NARA Roll 0186, image 2485 (Enclosure 1 to the Morning Report of 28 August 1944, roster of Company A (NAID 565130975)); Special Orders No. 200, 14th Hq & Hq Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army, Camp Polk, Louisiana, 22 August 1944, par. 4 (same roll, image 2462); the battalion's cadre memorandum repeats the list (same roll, image 2473)
Confirmed — Unit record
October 19, 1944
Company A, 91st Signal Operation Battalion — Camp Bowie, Texas
Two months into the new battalion, an order of the Fourth Army Special Troops at Camp Bowie relieves fourteen of its men, him among them, from assignment to the 91st Signal Operation Battalion and attaches them, unassigned, to the 7th Headquarters Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army, while they stay with the battalion on detached service. “No change of station is involved.” On October 19 Company A's own Morning Report records the change for him and five other enlisted men of the company. Newly discovered.
Special Orders No. 261, Camp Bowie, October 18, 1944, paragraph 44. “S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38079230 6709” is twelfth on the list. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.“PUTNAM, ARVAL A. 38079230 S/SGT” — Camp Bowie, Texas, 19 October 1944. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co A, 91st Signal Operation Battalion, Signal Corps — NARA Roll 0191, image 3543 (Morning Report ending 2400, 19 October 1944, Camp Bowie, Texas (NAID 571454605)); Special Orders No. 261, 7th Hq & Hq Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army, 18 October 1944, par. 44 (NAID 571451683, image 2734)
Confirmed — Unit record
November 2, 1944
Ordered to the 7th Headquarters Casual Detachment
A Special Order of the Fourth Army Special Troops at Camp Bowie relieves him from detached service with the 91st Signal Operation Battalion and orders him to report to the commanding officer of the 7th Headquarters Casual Detachment for duty. Beside his name the clerk types his specialty, 6709, Traffic Analyst, German. A casual detachment held men between assignments. Three weeks later this one sent him on for discharge. Newly discovered.
“S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38079230 6709”, sixth name on the list. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — 7th Hq Casual Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army — NARA Roll 0205, image 1247 (Special Orders No. 265, 7th Hq and Hq Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army, Camp Bowie, Texas, 2 November 1944 (NAID 574640067)); the same order is filmed again at NAID 574643057, images 1526 and 1570
Confirmed — Unit record
November 23, 1944
Leaves Camp Bowie for the Separation Center at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas
The headquarters Morning Report for November 23 lists Putnam Arval A, S Sgt first among six men who left Camp Bowie that day, transferred to the War Department Separation Center at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, under paragraph 34 of Special Orders No. 278. Separation centers processed soldiers out of the Army. The Separation Center's own roster records the same six men joining it that day, with his unit given as the 7th Headquarters Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army, Camp Bowie. Newly discovered.On these last pages a clerk typed one digit of his serial number wrong, 38979230 for 38079230, and the error was copied from order to order. The name, the grade, the detachment, the date and the five men listed with him all match his other orders.
The Morning Report of November 23, 1944. His name heads the six men sent to the Separation Center at Camp Chaffee. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The Separation Center’s roster of men joining, line 34: “Putnam Arval A S Sgt … 7th Hq & Hq Det Sp Trs 4th A Cp Bowie Tex … 23 Nov 44”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — 7th Hq & Hq Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army — NARA Roll 0205, image 1497 (Morning Report ending 2400, 23 November 1944, Camp Bowie, Texas (NAID 574640067)); Separation Center, 4822d Unit, Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, Inclosure 2 to the Morning Report of 24 November 1944 (NAID 574147411, image 2629)
Confirmed — Unit record
November 26, 1944
Honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant
He leaves the Army after two years and nine and a half months, having risen from Private to Staff Sergeant, his final rank. The Separation Center at Camp Chaffee lists Putnam Arval A, S Sgt fifth on its roll of men discharged on November 26, 1944, and two independent records give the same date: the Veterans Administration's index of his service, and his obituary, which calls the discharge honorable. Every station in his record is inside the United States: Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Louisiana, Texas again and Arkansas. Newly discovered.
The Separation Center’s list of men discharged on November 26, 1944. “Putnam Arval A S Sgt” is line 5. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Separation Center, 4822d Unit, Camp Chaffee, Arkansas — NARA Roll 0068, image 2639 (Inclosure 1 to the Morning Report of 26 November 1944 (NAID 574147411)); Veterans Administration BIRLS index (release from service, November 26, 1944); Obituary, The Shawnee News-Star, April 1, 2001 — Find A Grave memorial #91651537
Confirmed — Unit record
December 11–14, 1944
A clerk's error at Camp Bowie, corrected by the Army
On December 11, two weeks after his discharge, a Camp Bowie Special Order still lists S Sgt Arval A Putnam 38079230 among the cadre of the 7th Headquarters Casual Detachment. He is the only man on the list with no specialty typed beside his name. Three days later the headquarters Morning Report enters a correction under his name: the entry made from that order “should be” marked revoked, under paragraph 14 of Special Orders No. 300. The order had carried a man who had already left, and the Army corrected its own books. Both pages are shown here so the record is complete. Newly discovered.
Special Orders No. 298, December 11, 1944. His name is fifth on the list, with no specialty number beside it. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The Morning Report of December 14, 1944: “CORRECTION … Putnam Arval A … SHOULD BE Revoked per par 14 SO 300”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — 7th Hq & Hq Detachment, Special Troops, Fourth Army — NARA Roll 0006, image 695 (Morning Report ending 2400, 14 December 1944, Camp Bowie, Texas (NAID 577118432)); Special Orders No. 298, same headquarters, 11 December 1944, par. 14 (same roll, image 683)
Confirmed — Record
1945
Returns to Oklahoma Baptist University and graduates magna cum laude
He returns to Oklahoma Baptist University, finishes the degree the draft interrupted, and graduates magna cum laude.
The 1950 census enumerator writes the household down at apartment 9: Arval A. Putnam, head, forty years old, born in Oklahoma, at work forty hours a week as a city mail carrier for the Post Office; his wife Anna E., thirty-seven, born in New Mexico; and their two daughters, Mary Ida, four, and Nancy M., three. The signature at the top of the sheet is the enumerator's, and it reads Anna E. Putnam, the same name as the wife written four lines below it.
The Putnam household on the 1950 census sheet for Shawnee. His line is the one beginning “Putnam, Arval A. — Head”. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
He dies in his own home at ninety-one, twenty-eight days after Anna. He is buried beside her at Resthaven Memorial Park, under a bronze marker that records their wedding date and nothing about the war.
Where this came from. The family began with a name and a hometown. Most Army personnel files from this period were lost in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, so this account was built from records kept elsewhere: his draft registration card, his Army enlistment record, the Veterans Administration index, the 1950 census, his obituary, and the Morning Reports and Special Orders that Army units filed every day, held on microfilm by the National Archives. Thirty of those Army pages are reproduced above, and each one names him.
What the records establish. His serial number, 38 079 230. His induction at Fort Sill on February 7, 1942. Nine posts over thirty-three months: Fort Sill, Camp Barkeley, Fitzsimons General Hospital, the University of Cincinnati, Camp Crowder, Vint Hill Farms Station, Camp Polk, Camp Bowie and the Separation Center at Camp Chaffee. His rise from Private to Staff Sergeant. His training and classification as a Traffic Analyst, German. His departure for the Separation Center on November 23, 1944, and his discharge there on November 26, recorded by the center itself.
Service in the United States. Every station in his record is in the United States, and no page places him overseas. The records name no campaign or decoration, which is consistent with stateside service.
His discharge certificate. The one paper that would add to this account is his discharge certificate, WD AGO Form 53-55, which lists a soldier's service on a single page. Many veterans filed a copy with their county clerk when they came home. If the family would like to ask Pottawatomie County for it, the request letter is prepared and ready to sign.
