Lakehurst Police and World War II Vet, Harold Hinton, 1924-2011

Lakehurst Police Department and World War II veteran Harold F. Hinton died March 6, 2011, at Baltimore-Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland. 

Hinton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on September 12, 1924, but lived most of his life in Lakehurst. He served 20 years on the borough's police force and achieved the rank of sergeant, said his wife Anna Hinton.

The couple moved to Maryland to be near their daughter Mary Ellen Steger after Hinton retired from CIBA-Giegy, where he worked for 20 years after leaving the force in the late 1960s.

Borough administrator Norbert MacLean said Hinton was one of the first permanent police officers on the Lakehurst force.

He worked closely with late Manchester police chief Harold Payne, said Anna Hinton.

"They exchanged a lot of helpful information to each other," she said.

Hinton was a dapper Navy man when he met his wife at Lakehurst's naval air station. Anna Hinton, an eye-witness to the Hindenburg crash, worked as a secretary at the base. 

"He came in and out of where I worked and it was sort of love at first sight," Anna Hinton said. 

Hinton was on his last tour of duty at the time, his wife said. He served from 1942-1945.

Steger said her father was a gunner's mate. She recalled a story he told her about evading an intense Japanese air strike during World War II by jumping overboard and pretending to be dead.

Steger described her father as a "very dedicated policeman." She said he tried to help young people, not only through his police work, but as a Little League coach and umpire, and by talking to their parents about recreational drugs, which were an emerging concern in the 1960s. 

"He was a very pleasant man of good character. He was well liked," said Anna Hinton.

Through tears Steger said, "I just lost my best friend."

"No matter how ill or how old they are, you don't want to let them go," she said.

He enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren and his miniature dauchsund Miss Molly, and he occasionally went to the race track, she said.

"After retirement, he was a pretty quiet man," said Steger.

Hinton faced numerous health challenges in recent years, his wife and daughter said, including open heart surgery, cancer and diabetes. 

"He was a very strong man. He really suffered the last 5-to-8 years," said Steger. 

"My mom devoted her life to taking care of my dad. He looked for her and she looked for him," she said.

Hinton is survived by his wife of 66 years, Anna (nee Pasalano) Hinton, his daugther Mary Ellen Steger and her husband Paul Edward, Annapolis, Maryland, grandchildren Edward Strassle and Ellen Fergus, and great-grandchildren Brooke Emily Strassle, Trista Lynn Strassle, and Olivia Ann Fergus.