I was previously unfamiliar with the gentleman, but after reading his obit, I think a case can be made that he was the most interesting man in the world.
High points:
- He shot down a ME262 during WWII (flying a P-51 Mustang), and spent three months as a German POW after being shot down himself.
- “He liked to tell the story of how he met the Duke of Windsor at one soiree: they were relieving themselves on a bush at the time. The duke became a friend.”
- He got into auto racing, and was good enough that he was Pierre Levegh’s co-driver in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans. Yeah, that 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- “The horror of the crash motivated Mr. Fitch to develop safety barriers, including one for the walls of racetracks to deflect a car and soften its impact. For the highway barrier, he began with liquor crates, filling them with different amounts of sand and then crashing into them himself at speeds of up to 70 m.p.h. to figure out what worked best. “
- “Mr. Fitch helped develop the Lime Rock Park racecourse in Lakeville, Conn., carving it out of a potato field, and then managed it.”