Bombardier John David PITMAN (Did not matriculate)

Royal South African Artillery
Born 20 September 1918
Killed in action 21 November 1941, aged 23 
Buried at Knightsbridge War Cemetery, Acroma, Libya.

John David Pitman was the youngest son of George John Edward Pitman, a doctor, and Dora Lucy Wilmot Pitman of Mossel Bay, Cape Province, South Africa.

He was educated at Bishops Diocesan College, Rondebosch, and at the University of Cape Town, where he took his BA in 1938. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1939, but joined the South African Artillery before he could come to Merton.

He served in the Middle East, and was killed in action in Libya on 21 November 1941, at the start of Operation Crusader that lifted the siege of Tobruk.