“I spent all of 1944 in France, in various battles,” Hitchman said. “We arrived in Normandy 17 days after D-Day and were there until the end of the war. We were in Germany, Belgium, Austria but mostly in France.”

Hitchman attended Queen Anne High School in Seattle and was drafted in February 1943.

After training in various places, he was shipped to England in December that same year. He and his troop operated out of Southern England during the Battle of Britain.

“Germany was bombing Britain every night, and we were stationed in an airfield south of France,” Hitchman said.

Their job was to fly over with bombing and strafing. Shortly after the infamous invasion of June 6, 1944, Hitchman and his crew prepared to head to Normandy where they were stationed right behind the beaches.

“The war broke out and we started reconquering France. Our job was to stay ahead,” he said. “When armed forces met resistance, we were called for

air support to move whatever was in the way.”

When the war ended, Hitchman still had several months in his servic

e. However, he and his troop were sent home.

“Like every soldier, sailor, Marine, we were waiting for the war to be over, to get back home and resume our lives,” Hitchman said. “I was c

ertainly thinking along those lines.”

While away, Hitchman and his wife Janet wrote many letters back         and forth. Hitchman describes he and Janet as “high school and grade school sweethearts.”

“We weren’t officially engaged until after the war, but we wanted to get married and get started on a family right away,” he said.

They had four boys.

After the war, Hitchman went to the University of Washington to get a degree in business. Hitchman then worked for 40 years in the agriculture business before retiring and moving to Kingston.

The house he lives in has been in the Hitchman family since 1928. What used to be summer property with rudimentary cabins and tents is now a large two-story house overlooking the water.

“In 1987, I retired and built this house,” Hitchman said. “We severed ties to Seattle and lived in Kingston permanently. There is much less traffic.”

The windows from the kitchen and living room look out over the bay, and on the top of the TV cabinet where Hitchman likes to watch the Seahawks play, sit

s a small model of a plane with the inscription “K-4” on the side.

“That is a model of a plane I crewed on during WWII,” Hitchman said. “[The] plane crashed in a lake in Austria close to the end of the war. It laid on the bottom of that lake close to 80 years, and now they are rebuilding it in Caldwell, Idaho.”

The plane he is talking about is the “Dottie Mae,” a plane that served more than 90 combat missions in World War II. The crew rebuilding it is using blueprints from the Smithsonian to make it an exact replica, bringing “Dottie Mae” back to her former glory.

“By this time next year, it should fly,” Hitchman said with a note of pride.

Hitchman stays active with other WWII vets. He is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and Disabled American Vets. But how the Consule found Hitchman was through his group known as the Veterans of Battle of the Bulge.

“It’s a small group of old guys, a meets once a month kind of gig,” he said. “We have lunch and visit about the old times.

“A fella in the group received the award, and I assume maybe he alerted them about me.”

Although he is sure, a lot of other men received the same honor, he described receiving the medal as a “wonderful surprise.”

“I was just a young kid and went where they sent me,” he said. “As far as an interesting military career, I was fortunate. I went a lot of places, did a lot of things.”