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A Sierra Leone PoW's Story

Discussion in 'WWII Today' started by GRW, Jan 7, 2021.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    Great story, and even has a connection to the Empire Windrush phenomenon.
    "John Henry Smythe, an RAF navigator from Sierra Leone in West Africa, was shot down and captured in Nazi Germany in 1943.
    War had broken out four years earlier when he was 25 years old, and Johnny volunteered to join the fight against fascism after a call from Britain to its colonies for recruits. Again and again, he and his comrades risked their lives in the skies above occupied Europe.
    After he was liberated from a prisoner-of-war camp, he would go on to become an officer aboard the Empire Windrush and then an amateur courtroom talent of such promise he was invited to train as a barrister in England. As the attorney general of Sierra Leone, he would meet President John F Kennedy in the White House.
    But as a black man in the clutches of a murderously racist Nazi regime, how did Johnny Smythe survive the war?"
    www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55286092
     
    Kai-Petri likes this.

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