What, When & Where: The Autobiography of John Townsend Fitch

What, When & Where A first person account of the life and multiple careers of John Townsend Fitch. Born in 1926 in Shanghai of missionary parents, Fitch left China in 1937, as the Japanese troops neared Nanking. He attended schools in Pasadena, CA; Wooster, OH; Cambridge, MA, and Lake Placid, NY. He started college at M.I.T. in 1943, but, with America at war, he joined the Navy and learned to be an electronics technician. Shortly after he shipped out for the south Pacific, World War II ended, and the Navy sent Fitch back to Shanghai. He got his first taste of radio broadcasting at an Armed Forces Radio Station there, and went on to build and operate a similar station in Nanking. Once again he had to leave China on short notice when Communist forces advanced on Nanking. Fitch was pictured in LIFE Magazine in 1948, as the U.S. Military Advisory Group packed up and left. Returning to the U.S., he completed his electrical engineering degree at M.I.T. while becoming a radio and television announcer in Boston. Using the name John McLellan, he had a 10-year career as a host of programs on jazz. He also wrote newspaper columns on jazz for the Boston Traveler. Still later, he became the on-camera host for the 6-year run of the "M.I.T. Science Reporter" series on public television. On retirement, Fitch took up family history and genealogy and has written five books on the English and American ancestors of this family. Now, at the age of 87, he has written this book called "What, When & Where" about his life.