Walter Andrew Hitchcock – Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army

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Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to add some information to your website about my parents. I’m afraid that a lot of the information might be things I would ask you rather than you receiving from me as my father died (at the age of 73) when I was only 8 years old so I do not recall what medals or campaigns or other military info pertained to him.

His medals and ribbons, including his purple heart, were given to my former brother who estranged himself from the rest of our family by his unforgivably wretched and destructive behavior so I have no record of what they were.

I believe my father attended JAG school in Charlottesville, Virginia, prior to departing for Italy, where I believe he
took some shrapnel in his leg while landing at Salerno. I know he spent most of his time in Naples and was nearby when a post office blew up and was traumatized from his work assembling body parts from the street after that explosion.  I also know that he went to hot springs after the war for several years because his brain was pretty well toasted from his war experience, and I saw many years ago a transcript of his discharge hearings which alerted me to the hereditary nature of bipolar disorder.

I just now was perusing your site further when I spotted an entry for an old buddy of mine – Fred Groghan – who I had not realized had died, as I was in full mental collapse around that time, in fact I was living in a disabled trailer without
utilities in the woods at the time of his death. It does make me think I should learn to build a legitimate webpage and force myself to get my facts a bit chronological before I attempt to load more info onto you.

I know my father graduated from University Pennsylvania in 1911 I believe with a degree in civil engineering and I think he originally was in the cavalry when he first joined the reserves. I think when he was in  high school in Philadelphia in 1904. My mother graduated in 1931 with AC degree in secretarial science from the Margaret Morison College of Carnegie Inst of Tech (now CMU).

I don’t know if you have any info in your records about my father. If you do, perhaps I could add that to what I know and put it all down in the proper order and certainly save you the nuisance.

My cousin, who was my father’s only niece, just died last month in her 80s and I’m sure there is very little left that can be found out anymore.

Thank you for affording me this opportunity and I will try to put this together better.  Again if you have some specific military record info I would love to be privy thereto and include it. Thanks again.  Philip T. Hitchcock

HITCHCOCK, WALTER ANDREW

  • LT COL   US ARMY
  • WORLD WAR II
  • DATE OF BIRTH: 11/30/1887
  • DATE OF DEATH: 10/07/1961
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 30  SITE 1922 RH
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

HITCHCOCK, GERTRUDE TOWNSEND

  • DATE OF BIRTH: 02/27/1910
  • DATE OF DEATH: 08/05/2000
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 30  SITE 1922 RH
  • ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
  • WIFE OF HITCHCOCK, WALTER ANDREW  LT COL US ARMY

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