George E. McLean

A native and longtime New Orleans resident, George was the youngest of three children born to Julia Ayers McChesney and Elmer Wilson McLean. He attended Fortier High School and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942, eleven days after his eighteenth birthday. Serving as a gunnery sergeant with B-24 “Liberator” bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force in the European Theater of WWII, he completed thirty missions over France and Germany as a lead aircraft crew member with the 93rd Bombardment Group-the most decorated bomber group of the USAAF. In 2017, he received the French Legion Medal of Honor.

After VJ Day, George attended Washington University in St. Louis where he earned a baccalaureate in chemical and mechanical engineering and where he first met Lolita Briggs of Flint, Michigan. They married in 1950. George and his beloved “Teta” returned to New Orleans where they raised two daughters and shared fifty-six years of marriage until her death in 2006.

During his five-decade career as an engineer, George worked for Boeing Aircraft at the Michoud facility where he helped to refine and construct the SI-C stage of the Saturn V rockets that powered the NASA Apollo program for human exploration of the moon. He also became highly valued operations engineer in the region’s petrochemical refining industry. “I tried to retire a dozen times, but I could never ignore the next phone call.”

As an active member of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans and later Parkway Presbyterian Church of Metairie, he answered many phone calls to help others and participated in numerous Gulf Coast hurricane relief efforts. George is survived by his two daughters, Lynda McLean Burger and Susan Ayers McLean as well as two granddaughters, Jennifer Burger and Caitlin Burmaster, and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service for Mr. McLean will be held on Friday, September 9, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. at John Calvin Presbyterian Church, 4201 Transcontinental Dr. in Metairie, LA.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the WWII Museum in Mr. McLean's honor at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/give.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.LeitzEaganFuneralHome.com for the family.