Profile · commander

Władysław Raginis

Polandb. 27 June 1908 · d. 10 September 1939Add to favourites

On 2 September 1939 he was given command of the Wizna Fortified Area, a 9 km buffer between the Narew and Biebrza rivers, and from 7 September he led about 720 men against more than 42,000 German soldiers. On 10 September his bunker was the last pocket of resistance; badly wounded, he ordered his men to surrender after a German threat to shoot Polish prisoners, and then took his own life with a grenade. He received the Virtuti Militari Gold Cross in 1970, the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2009 and a posthumous promotion to major in 2012.