Lieutenant-Colonel, Manchester and Parachute Regiments
Born: August 14th 1912
Died: September 19th 1944
Age at Death: 32
Age at Death: 32
Died of wounds at Arnhem, September 19th 1944
John Fitch was born on 14 August 1912 in Sheringham, Norfolk, to Charles Fitch, a bank cashier, and his wife Florence (née Sadd). Joining the army in 1933, he took part in the ill-fated 1940 Battle of France, and then in the victorious Allied advance in north-west Europe in 1944. However, the Allies suffered a temporary check at Arnhem in the Netherlands in September 1944, where Fitch commanded the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Parachute Brigade. Trapped near Arnhem Bridge, Fitch ordered his men to run back in twos and threes to the town’s Rhine Pavilion about 250 yards away. Many of the men arrived safely, but Fitch was killed by a mortar bomb. He is buried in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery.