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George Ashmore Fitch (1883-1979)
George A. Fitch was born in Soochow, China, in 1883, the son of Presbyterian
missionaries George F. and Mary (McLellan) Fitch, and he traveled to the U.S. to become
a priest. He graduated from the College of Wooster, Ohio in 1906, and Union Theological
Seminary in New York with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1909. He was ordained in the
Presbyterian Church in 1909 and went to China to work with the YMCA in Shanghai,
soon transferring to the Nanking branch. When the Nanking Massacre occurred in 1937-
1938, Fitch, who was head of the YMCA there, served as director of the International
Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. He recorded his observations in a diary and
fi lmed some of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanking in
December 1937, the fi rst documentation of the events to leave the city, causing a sensation
and outrage in Shanghai.
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John G. Magee
John G. Magee moved to China in 1912 after being ordained as a minister of the
Episcopal Church in the United States. During the rape of Nanking, Magee set up a makeshift
hospital to take care of wounded soldiers and refugees. Magee fi lmed the Japanese
atrocities he witnessed in Nanking on a 16mm camera, and smuggled them out at great
personal risk. His footage later became key evidence at the International War Crimes
Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). This visual documentation, along with the diaries of
other Westerners, is an invaluable resource.
James H. McCallum
James H. McCallum arrived in China in 1921. He worked with the church and
boys school at South Gate in Nanking until 1937. He was a member of the International
Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and is described as working night and day driving
the hospital ambulance to save wounded civilians and soldiers. After the massacre, the
McCallums continued working in Nanking but were eventually placed under house arrest
by the Japanese, then repatriated on the MS Gripsholm. After the war he was co-secretary
for Disciples of Christ in China with Dr. Luther Shao. He presented an affi davit in the
War Crimes Trial in 1946.
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