The story of Joseph Cyril Fitt A noted American Hero of World War II

The story of Joseph Cyril Fitt A noted American Hero of World War II

This is an account of a great American Hero, Joseph Cyril Fitt, who was killed on June the 13th 1944 in the vicinity of St. Mere-Eglise by a German sniper.

Joseph joined the paratroopers early in the war, and was assigned to Company C of the 82nd Airborne Division. Joseph took part in three of the Regiment's four Regimental airborne assaults. In April of 1943, he left with his unit to Casablanca, North Africa and Kairouan, Tunisia, for training, and then on to the night-time parachute attack at Gela, Sicily on the 9th of July 1943 where they fought off the famed German Herman Goering Panzer Division. He then participated in the night-time parachute attack into Paestum, near Salerno, Italy.

After arriving in England in 1944, Joseph prepared with the rest of the 505th airborne infantry for "D-Day".

Interestingly enough, during the fighting Joseph Cyril Fitt was fearless, but when off duty Joseph and his very good friend Private Joseph E. Fant were known for their playfulness and earned the pun-nicknames of, “Fitt and Fant - the Fabulous Foul Up's of Company C".

Fitt and Fant would leap into destiny on the 6th of June in 1944, in the early morning hours along the Normandy Peninsula. Where, during their mission they liberated St. Mere-Eglise. The battle began with a troubled parachute jump into Normandy when thousands of parachutes blossomed in the night sky over a German village. An eyewitness tells this story:

"As their plane made its way to the drop site, the aircraft was hit by artillery fire. Everyone was thrown to the back of the plane in a big tangle, and the plane dropped several hundred feet. Though the pilot managed to gain control, the plane vibrated terribly. The paratroopers didn't think the plane could stay together. The temptation was strong to jump into the darkness from the damaged plane, but with the plane just treetop high, Sgt. Herman Zeitner, the jump-master, screamed, "We're too low!" and stalled the men who were rushing the door to make the jump. After gaining altitude, and completing the jump, a paratrooper was heard to say: “We jumped into the darkness, and our chutes opened at the same instant that our butts hit the ground. It was that close”. Miraculously, the entire group landed safely, despite the short drop and were close enough together that they assembled in a matter of minutes.

Their objective, a bridge across the Merderet River, near St. Mere-Eglise was lightly defended and seized without difficulty, but they were forced to stave off two separate enemy counterattacks, one of which involved the use of captured Allied paratroopers forced to march as human shields ahead of a group of German soldiers and three of the German’s famous ‘Tiger tanks’. The German infantry crowded behind the tanks, and kept coming across the bridge with the captured paratroopers ahead of them at gunpoint.

American troops held their fire at first; but they knew they had to fire sooner or later. The battle began when a determined paratrooper waded into the river and fired his anti-tank gun into the tread on the lead tank, disabling it, and causing the tank to turn sideways on the bridge, effectively blocking any further advance by enemy troops. As the German infantry ran for cover their third tank backed away; but though the lead tank itself was disabled, its machine gun turret was undamaged, and the German crew proceeded to lay down withering fire from the machine gun turret into the American forces. Efforts to disable the tank were fruitless, for shells failed to pierce its armor plating; while Americans were falling easy victim to the incessant machine gun fire.

During the peak of the action, when bullets were crisscrossing like thousands of angry bees through the intervening space, Joseph Fitt—angered when one of his buddies sank to the ground beside him—impulsively, and without orders from his superiors, jumped the barricade and ran fearlessly through a fusillade of enemy fire, leapt onto the conning tower of the offending tank, jerked open the hatch, and dropped a grenade into the interior of the tank, killing its crew. Miraculously, he then ran, unharmed, back to the barricade.

As a reward for his bravery he was awarded the Silver Star for courage in the face of enemy fire at Normandy.

Days later, he was not so fortunate, when, while pursuing a retreating enemy squad, he lost his life to a German sniper.