He admitted he hit her — but said it was for her own good.

A Queens jury yesterday watched as a hulking National Guardsman, accused of viciously beating and drowning his girlfriend, was brought to tears during a videotaped interrogation by cops in which he claimed he hit his victim to get her to come to her senses and get out of frigid waters off the Rockaways.

“I hit her three or four times in the mist of the struggling or tussling in the water,” said David Lynch, 32, as he was questioned by detectives at the 101st Precinct station house in Far Rockaway in the death of Althea Lewis.

The serviceman is facing 25 years to life in the brutal beating of Lewis.

“I didn’t plan for this to go this way. I just wanted to get her out of the water,” cried Lynch during the Nov. 23, 2010, interview.