Back to Normandy: Cumberland County veteran to mark D-Day 80th anniversary in France
A Cumberland County World War II veteran is headed to France later this year for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy.
Retired Army Col. Sam Kitchen, who turns 98 on April 5, said that since he was a teen he's wanted to visit the place where legendary World War II paratroopers jumped into Normandy to liberate the area on June 4, 1944.
Kitchen was born in Waukegan, Illinois, and moved around the U.S. to Florida and New England states, before his family settled in Petersburg, Virginia, when he was a teenager.
He was still in high school when World War II broke out.
“I ran around with older boys, and they were all getting drafted, so I decided I wanted to go, too, but my mother wouldn’t let me go,” Kitchen said during an interview at his Gray’s Creek home this month. “She said I wasn’t old enough. I was only 16.”
Kitchen said after persistent begging, he got his mother to agree to tell recruiters he was 17 and went into the Marines on Feb. 25, 1943.
After completing boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and training at Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Kitchen was assigned to an aviation squadron based out of Atlantic, North Carolina.
World War II
When his unit deployed overseas, Kitchen was attached to a landing force air support control unit based in Hawaii, he said.
“From there I went to Okinawa, and after Okinawa was secured, our team was sent to Manilla in the Philippines and was attached to an Army unit,” he said.
After a few months, the unit was assigned to then-Peking, China, now Bejing.
At the end of WWII, Kitchen returned to Virginia to finish high school and remained in the Marine Corps Reserves.
Korean War
After graduating from high school, he went to Washington, D.C., and became a motorcycle cop, until the Korean War broke out.
“One of my favorite hangouts was the Army recruiting office, because I am a very avid coffee drinker, and most of them were,” Kitchen said.
The major in charge of the recruiting office asked Kitchen about his military service in the Marine Corps and recommended he transfer to the Army and get commissioned.
Kitchen joined the Army as a staff sergeant, then went to leadership school, officer candidate school and jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
“I wanted to be in the 82nd, and Col. “Bulldog” Bizzard — they called him bulldog, because every time he got mad, he spit — he said, ‘All airborne (soldiers) want to be at jump school,” Kitchen said. “I said, ‘No I don’t. I want to go to the 82nd., and his word was, ‘I’ll send you to a (expletive) straight-leg outfit.’”
A “leg” refers to soldiers who are not airborne qualified.
Kitchen said Bizzard sent him to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, a couple of days later, where he applied to go to flight school in San Marcos, Texas. He then went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
He was assigned to the 25th Division, 90th Field Artillery Battalion as a pilot flying L-19 and L-20 aircraft in the Korean War for two tours.
Vietnam War
During the Vietnam War, Kitchen was assigned to the 121st Assault Helicopter Company and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross.
“I helped (rescue) the captain, that was an advisor to the Vietnamese, and they were completely surrounded by VC (Viet Cong) and they were trying to get him out and couldn’t get him out,” Kitchen said. “I volunteered to go in, flew in, got him and we got the hell out of there.”
After his service in Vietnam, Kitchen said, he finally was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division.
“I always loved the 82nd. I heard about what they did in Europe (during World War II) and wanted to serve with them," he said.
Kitchen was assigned as an aviation maintenance officer for the division for a couple of years, before being assigned to the Judge Advocate General Corps on post as a prosecutor and later a liaison officer between the military and civil authorities.
He retired from then-Fort Bragg in 1977 and settled near Fayetteville, working for Kelly Springfield Tire Co. before becoming a motel manager with his wife for several years.
Veterans back to Normandy
Kitchen said though all his military fighting was in the Pacific during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War, he’s always wanted to go to Normandy to see where legendary paratroopers like retired Command Sgt. Maj. “Rock” Merritt fought.
He said he served under Merritt at then-Fort Bragg when Merritt was command sergeant major for the 18th Airborne Corps.
While in Washington D.C. last year, Kitchen had a chance encounter with French national Valerie Gautier, said retired Command Sgt. Maj. Roger Vickers, who is part of the 82nd Airborne Division Historical Society, and a friend of Kitchen.
Gautier first became involved with helping World War II paratroopers when she was a teenager and her family helped a U.S. veteran. The veteran wanted to find a family who hid him from Nazis during World War II, Vickers said.
Via video chat from France last week, Gautier said she was 14 years old when she met Sgt. Bob Murphy during a D-Day commemoration event. Murphy, a veteran of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, is credited with being the first paratrooper on the ground during the Normandy invasion
A few years later, Murphy introduced Gautier to Rock Merritt, who she said became like a surrogate father whenever she visited the U.S.
As an adult, she has organized expense-free trips for World War II veterans to attend memorial ceremonies in Normandy and coordinates with French locals to host the veterans through an organization called Veterans Back to Normandy.
“People recognize and have gratitude for the World War II veterans for their freedoms,” Gautier said. “So we can’t forget them and don’t want to forget.”
The organization raises funds for the trips and has been sponsored by the 82nd Historical Society.
Vickers said that from from May 30 to June 12 Kitchen will stay in the St. Mere Eglise area with other World War II veterans.
Kitchen said that when he was told he would be able to go to Normandy, he became emotional and thought it was a joke.
“Ever since World War II, I’d always heard about Normandy, but I never got there and I’ve always wanted to go,” he said. “So it looks like I'm finally going.”
Vickers said Kitchen is currently one of eight veterans signed up for the trip, and Veterans Back to Normandy is looking for two more World War II veterans to send.
Anyone who knows of a World War II veteran interested in going can email Vickers at n888yw@gmail.com.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at 910-486-3528 or rriley@fayobserver.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cumberland County World War II vet to go to D-Day site
