The dioxygen oxidation of alcohols over platinum catalysts has been known for a long time. While of potential importance in synthetic procedures, this process has never found extensive use except in carbohydrate oxidations. Some reasons for this is the fact that this reaction only appears to work well in an aqueous medium in the presence of rather large amounts of a Pt black catalyst. Results obtained here show that supported Pt catalysts can be used to promote this oxidation in organic solvents provided a small amount of water is added to the reaction medium. It was also estabilished that the reaction takes place on the more coordinately unsaturated corner atoms on the Pt surface.