Brummie war hero's own Warsaw pact
Secret files made public in Poland have revealed the history of a Birmingham wartime hero who tried in vain to halt the infamous Nazi massacre of the Warsaw Uprising.
Flight Lieutenant John Ward, from Ward End, managed to break out from a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War, escaping to Poland where he became a secret agent.
From there he urged London to help the Polish uprisings in a series of crucial communiques.
But his messages were ignored, and 200,000 Poles were slaughtered by the Nazis.
Ward tried to get Winston Churchill to use his influence and secure intervention by Stalin to help the pro-Western Home Army.
But his appeals fell on deaf ears and the Soviet army stayed put and watched the slaughter through binoculars.
Ward joined the RAF in 1937, aged 18. Three years later, he was shot down and sent to a prisoner of war camp in occupied Poland.
He escaped in 1941 and stayed in Poland for the next three years, sending more than 100 messages to London.
In one report he described how 500 Polish women and children were used as human shields in front of a German Panzar column.
Former encoder Zofia Korbonska, now aged 90, said Ward played a vital role in alerting the world to events in Poland.
"He took it upon himself to contact London to get us help," she said.
"They didn't believe our reports of Nazi atrocities and that our supposed Soviet allies positioned nearby were letting it happen. John made sure London knew about it."
* Are you a relative of John Ward or a survivor of the Warsaw Uprising? Write to The Editor, Evening Mail, PO Box 78, Weaman Street, Birmingham, B4 6AY, or icfeedback@mrn.co.uk
ŠThe Evening Mail, UK