The Italian Canadian Remembrance Project

During World War Two, on November 24, 1943, a Royal Air Force Wellington aircraft, with six crew members, crashed in the Apennine Mountains in northern Italy near the town of Bardi in the Province of Parma. The newspaper identified it as a Canadian plane and for decades, the locals always assumed that the crew had been Canadian. Coincidently this is an area of Italy from where a large number of Italians, from the region of Emilia Romagna, immigrated to Ottawa. Many have maintained strong links to their ancestral home.

The story of the plane crash had become a bit of a legend. In the spring of 1998 the Bardi journal, La Famiglia Bardigiana, which is also circulated internationally, carried an article about that event but did not offer any new information about the men who died, their origin or the circumstances around that crash. It continued to be a mystery. One subscriber of this Journal was a Mr. Adriano Chiappa, a Canadian citizen living in Ottawa but who had lived in a small hamlet (Pilati) near the site of the crash. His daughter, Anna Chiappa, took an interest in the story and wanted to learn more. Anna also felt that it was time to acknowledge the airmen, who were still assumed to be Canadian, and bring closure to this tragic event. Ms.Chiappa felt that it was, to a certain extent, her obligation as an Italian Canadian, to search out this information. Anna believed it was perhaps this tragedy which may have caused her family and others to find themselves in the fortunate situation to be living here in Canada. With this in mind she sought the assistance of Senator Di Nino, with the Senate of Canada, to try and ascertain the identity of the airmen and background about the crash itself. His office was able to obtain the assistance the National Archives.

The research found that indeed there were six crew members who were part of Squadron 37 of the Royal Air Force and that there were two Canadians. They were Flight Lieutenant Hedley William Snodgrass Fitch and Lieutenant Colin Wheatly. The others were from Britain and New Zealand. (RJ Taafe, DW Crooker, J.Shelton, WG Holme). The Italian records also noted that the townspeople gave the crew a full military funeral "as if it they were one of their own" - something which was unheard of during the war. They were laid to rest at the Crederola cemetery until August 1945 when the bodies were exhumed and taken to the Milan cemetery where they remain to this day.

November 24- 25, 2003 will mark the 60th anniversary of that crash. Along with local officials in Bardi, a commemorative ceremony is being organized for Saturday May 24, 2003.

In planning the commemorative service, attempts were made to try make contact with the families of the two Canadian airmen. Assistance was sought from the Genealogy and the Personnel Records Unit of the National Archives as well as the Canadian Legion. An ad was placed in Vapour Trails of Air Force Magazine. A response was received from Allan Coggan, from Mahone Bay NS. He related that he was one of four remaining crewmen who had trained with Ft. Lt. Fitch. Mr. Coggan was able to locate the son, Hedley Fitch III, who was just a year old when his father volunteered to go overseas. Subsequently the brother of Ft. Lt. Fitch, Leslie Fitch, who lives in Ottawa, was also contacted.

Hedley Fitch III and his mother had gone to the Milan cemetery in 1992. However they had no knowledge of the circumstances around the crash, where the plane actually came down, that the crew had been treated with dignity and respect or that they were given a military funeral. Anna sent him all the documents which had been received from the Archives for his information.

Later Anna Chiappa received a letter from Coggan and inside was a picture of Ft. Lt. Fitch, a striking man at the prime of his life. It was also at around this time that she learned, after all these years, that her Aunt Adalgisa Chiappa-Draghi also living in Ottawa had pieces of the airplane. Adalgisa was 13 years old and was at home in Pilati when the plane came down.

Anna has also met with the brother of the Fl. Lt. Fitch who has been living in Ottawa for fifty years, not very far from where her family first moved when they came to Canada. He is a 90 year old veteran marine. He was very pleased to meet Anna and tell her a little about the family.

In preparation of the ceremony in Italy, a television documentary is being produced for Omni television by Dunrobin Castle Entertainment. Also attending the memorial ceremony in Italy will be Canadian students and Veterans Affairs staff members from the Battle Normandy Foundation. This organization sends university students overseas to study the Second World War. For the first time they were including Italy in their tour and decided to add the Bardi ceremony.

A second special ceremony will be held in on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 12, 2003. This will provide an opportunity for the two families, (Chiappa, based here in Ottawa and the Fitch) to meet for the first time.