John Ward (RAF officer)

John Ward (1921 – 1995) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer (Flight Lieutenant), an ex-POW, and a member of the Polish resistance Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in occupied Poland of Second World War.

Ward was born in the Birmingham suburb of Ward End and joined the RAF in 1937, aged 18, as a wireless operator. Shot down by the Germans in the early phase of the war (in 1940), he escaped the POW camp in April 1941 and joined the Polish resistance. Between 1941-1945, he dispatched 64 reports giving an eyewitness account of the fighting to Allied governments. At one point he became a war correspondent for London's The Times. He also made English-language broadcasts from the clandestine radio station "Błyskawica" (Lighting) of Polish resistance during the Warsaw Uprising, and made over 100 reports during the Uprising.

ee also

Błyskawica radiostation

References

*Kamil Tchorek, [http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/times_online.htm Escaped British Airman Was Hero of Warsaw Uprising] , Reprinted from August 1, 2004 Times Online on the pages of Warsaw Uprising Museum
* [http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness.htm#w9 Short bio, recorded transmissions]