HARRY FFITCH

An early casualty of the Gallipoli landings in 1915 was Lieutenant Harry Herbert Ffitch. Harry Ffitch was born in Springfield in 1888 in central Canterbury and later grew up in Fendalton, a Christchurch suburb, where his parents lived at 34 Glandovey Road. He attended Christchurch Boys' High School, and after leaving school, became a member of the College Rifles. Like many young men of his generation, he was a keen sportsman, playing for the Old Boys' Rugby Club, and he also volunteered for the St John Ambulance Association. He was one of the first to volunteer for war service, and because of his education and prior military background, he was appointed platoon commander in the Canterbury Regiment of the Main Body who left for overseas service in October 1914. Percy Williams, a university student, wrote a diary about his war experiences. Harry Ffitch was Percy Williams' platoon commander, and Williams in his diary regrets his death, claiming that he “distinguished himself by his cool and courageous conduct on Sunday (April 25).”

This view is reinforced by Sergeant Major Hall-Jones, who stated that on the night after the landing “Mr (Major) Dawson and Mr Ffitch passed along frequently during the night with words of advice, encouragement and restraint, and I realised later their good sense in preventing us from charging. Had we gone forward we should have been wiped out.” He described Harry Ffitch's death the next day near what became known as Quinn's Post:

“Ffitch has got another one. I understand that he accounted for six that morning. Then, after another shot, he called out ‘missed him,' reloaded, and jumped up to fire again. But the enemy was waiting, and even as he took aim a bullet cut through the belt of his wristwatch, entered his cheek and killed him instantaneously. But his example and the spirit he had inspired in us did not pass with him, and by adopting his tactics we succeeded in beating back wave after wave of the enemy during that exhausting morning until a party of Australians relieved us.”

Harry Ffitch is commemorated in a number of places. His name is on the Lone Pine Memorial on Gallipoli. His photograph looks out over the main staircase at Christchurch Boys' High School as well as on the impressive memorial in the school grounds. As well as being named on the Papnui War Memorial, his name appears on the war memorial at Oxford in central Canterbury. Opposite is the headstone of his grandparents, on which he is also commemorated. George Dunnage was one of the first vicar of St Paul's in Papanui.

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