It was 1944 and 22-year-old sailor Joe Sandor was about to take part in the Normandy Invasion when his ship — twice — was attacked by the Nazis, leaving hundreds of his shipmates dead.

“You never forget, never,” said Sandor, now 89 and living in Plantation.

Neither has France.

So far this year, Sandor and 30 other WWII vets who served in France were honored with that country’s highest distinction: La Légion d’honneur — The French Legion of Honor.

“We had been occupied by the Nazi regime, and thanks to everyone here were liberated,” said Gaël de Maisonneuve, Consul General of France in Miami, at the ceremony in Boynton Beach.

The man working to make sure every South Florida veteran who deserves the medal gets it is another World War II veteran, Tom Kaiser, chairman of the Boynton Beach Veterans Council. Although Kaiser never stepped foot in France, he arranges the ceremonies and is responsible for 225 of the 500 South Florida veterans getting their medals. Most of the men live in Palm Beach County, but Kaiser is beginning a push through Broward and into Miami-Dade.

“I’ll keep going south until I run out of veterans or I run out of my own time,” Kaiser, now 84, said. “Age is our enemy now. We’re losing them.”

Kaiser said WWII veterans range in age from 84 to 102, depending on how old they were when they enlisted or were drafted. Kaiser organized seven medal ceremonies last year and has eight scheduled for 2012.

Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Legion of Honor is the highest award in France that rewards civil and military action in service to France by a citizen or foreigner.

In 2004, President Nicolas Sarkozy started a program to reward Americans who took part in any of the French campaigns.

“It was on the occasion of the 60th anniversary [of France’s liberation] that the president decided to award all of the American veterans,’’ said Anne-Laure Chavy, assistant to the consul general. “It was a very big celebration in France and a lot of Americans came to Normandy.

Sarkozy was moved by hundreds of WWII vets once young and strong who had returned to France now old and frail — but still gallant and proud.

Leon Heller, 85, of Plantation, had one of the medals pinned to his chest during a recognition ceremony in Boynton Beach on Sunday.

In 1944, Heller fought in France with the 607th Tank Destroyer Battalion in Le Havre near Normandy. He went from there into Germany and Belgium then returned to Germany to liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945.

“We didn’t talk about those things for 50 years. Then, all of a sudden, it all comes out,” Heller said.

Guidelines apply to Legion of Honor applicants: They must be living at the time of award presentation and have fought in at least one of the four liberation campaigns: Normandy, Provence, Ardennes or Northern France.

They must also provide a file of documents: Honorable Discharge paper, military separation order or DD Form 214; citations for other awards; military records that mention their missions on French soil before May 8, 1945; a paragraph explaining the mission; and a completed Proposal Memory form from the Consulate General of France in Miami.

“No one gets the French Legion of Honor who does not deserve it,’’ Kaiser said. “And believe me none of them are pussycats.”