❒ On 69th anniversary of D-Day, local veteran recognized for role in liberation of France

“FRANCE WILL NEVER FORGET,” the French consulate in San Francisco promised. In keeping with that vow, during a June 6 celebration in Pacific Heights the service of four World War II veterans, including Robert Hitchcock of Benicia, was marked with France’s highest honor.

Hitchcock was a young man when he flew missions on B-17 and B-24 bomber planes. Now he’s 90, having celebrated that birthday June 2. And earlier this month, on the 69th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that began the end of the Nazi occupation of France, he stood alongside fellow veterans Orion Thompson, Paul Harris and Charles Getz to receive the Legion d’honneur, the highest distinction France awards, in recognition of the part the men played in that country’s liberation.

“It was just the fact we were instrumental in freeing their nation from the Germans,” Hitchcock told The Herald on Tuesday. “We had a lot to do with France getting free.”

Hitchcock completed 32 missions during the war. Having trained as part of a 10-member team that was going to fly B-17s, he learned to be a radio man, able to understand the clicking dots and dashes of Morse Code as easily as others understood spoken words.

In schools in Chicago, Ill., and Sioux Falls, S.D., he also trained in semaphore, a flag signaling system that spells out words and numbers through flags and arm positions.

Even radio operators were trained in weapons, so Hitchcock also learned to handle a 40-caliber machine gun.

He then was sent first to Salt Lake City, where he met his first crew with whom he expected to fight, then to Texas, where he was introduced to “The Earthquake Magoon,” his first B-17, named for a character from the “Li’l Abner” comic strip.

Hitchcock’s first seven missions were on B-17s, the bombers called “Flying Fortresses.” But before his time in the military closed, that would change.

He was sent on a new assignment, trained to jam the transmissions of the enemy, blocking their radio signals.

“I was asked to leave the crew and go to an English school to learn radar,” he recalled. “I was reluctant to leave the crew.”

He had become buddies with the others in the team. But this was wartime.

Hitchcock entered the Royal Air Force school in Oulton, England, where he was trained in radar countermeasure operations.

Then he was assigned to fly on Consolidated B-24s, called “Liberators.” They were designed to be faster planes with a longer range and even heavier bomb-carrying capability than their predecessor.

But for a radar man, the B-24 had its drawbacks. Where the B-17 had a designated midship seat on the left side for the person operating the radio, the B-24 had no such accommodations. “I hadn’t had any experience with the B-24,” Hitchcock said. “There was no room for me on the plane. There was no radar set.”

The B-24 did have two sets of bomb bay doors. To provide Hitchcock with a place to use his extensive equipment, two of the rear doors were tied together, and members of the Army Air Corps built a plywood platform and wired it in.

That became Hitchcock’s place of operation in the bomber. He said there were some missions during which he nearly froze while working on the plywood platforms.

He has told of those adventures; his job left him little opportunity to meet his crew mates. “If we had gotten shot down, I wouldn’t know the name of the pilot, and I wouldn’t be able to see.”

During those missions, he would strain to hear what he called “little pips” on his radio scope. That would be German radios. Then he’d send the jamming signal so that the American bombers couldn’t be identified.

By the winter of 1944, the Germans were catching on to the Americans’ countermeasure tactics, and the radar-jamming group was disbanded.

“They sent us to B-17s again,” Hitchcock said. “It all worked out OK.”

In fact, the B-17s suited him better. When viewing the Aluminum Overcast during its 2011 visit to Concord, Hitchcock confessed he preferred the Flying Fortress.

On those bombers, he had a designated, built-in spot, not a makeshift platform on a bomb bay. And he felt he was part of the crew. On the B-24s, he said, “I was the extra man.”

Returning to the B-17s also meant Hitchcock could get back to sending and receiving messages, something he preferred to sitting silently and monitoring enemy communications.

He served on multiple missions during the latter part of his military career, and he was lucky. “I was never injured,” he said. ‘But I had three close shaves, being hit. There were three times I was nearly killed. But I got to come home.”

After the war, he became an aerial photographer, working on B-17s outfitted with cameras instead of weapons. He returned to his birthplace, Concord, where he and his wife, Lori, raised “three nice sons.” Then the family moved to Benicia.

But before he ended his military service, France honored him and others who were involved in freeing that country.

“They had a big parade in Paris, France,” he said. “It was at the end of World War II as far as the Germans — we were still fighting the Japanese. It was May of ’45. What a celebration!”

The Americans marched in that parade. But they had trouble staying in step — for good reason, Hitchcock said.

To march correctly, the soldiers and airmen needed to hear the downbeat of the band music. “But the American band was way up front. I was having trouble counting the cadence.” Complicating the matter was that behind the Americans came a bagpipe band, and its music had no downbeat at all. Unlike the front part of the American assembly, “we were marching to bagpipes!” he said.

Hitchcock wasn’t the only one struggling to keep time, he said. “They guys weren’t in step.” So a sergeant stepped out of ranks, showed the servicemen the beat, and helped them get back in alignment.

Hitchcock and the other veterans weren’t asked to march at France’s latest ceremony. Instead, they were taken to one of the “beautiful mansions way up on the hill” in Pacific Heights, where the French consul general has a home used for the presentation.

“They gave a nice little speech, and gave us the Legion of Honor medals,” he said. “It was totally unexpected to me. The war was so long ago.”

In fact, Hitchcock was skeptical when he first learned he’d be honored. He received written notification, but he thought it was a scam. He showed the letter to his wife, and finally decided to call the number listed in the letter. “They said, ‘No, this is real. We’re honoring you and some other veterans.’”

He and the other men were allowed to invite some guests, and 18 friends, neighbors and family members joined Hitchcock to see him get his medal. “I was well represented!” he said.

This isn’t the only medal he’s received for his service. He is a five-time recipient of air medals, and has others for the different campaigns in which he participated. “And a good conduct medal. I was a good boy – I didn’t get put in jail!” he joked.

Hitchcock said the ceremony in San Francisco was simple. The recipients stood as they were pinned. “It’s a gorgeous medal,” he said.

“We weren’t asked to speak at all, just a lot of handshakes and pats on the back. We went to the patio deck and visited.

“We had a great time. I didn’t get home until 6 p.m., and the event started at 11 a.m. It was a gorgeous day in San Francisco, one of the most beautiful days. The whole ceremony was amazing.”