John Godwin (Royal Navy officer), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
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Royal Navy officer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Buenos Aires, Argentina
About John Godwin (Royal Navy officer)
- Temporary Lieutenant John Godwin, RNVR (13 December 1919 – 2 February 1945) was a British naval officer.
- Born and brought up in Argentina, he took part in a raid named Operation Checkmate on Axis shipping near Haugesund, north of Stavanger, Norway.
- His party managed to sink a minesweeper and a number of steamers using limpet mines, but he was eventually captured with the rest of his party, a commando sergeant, two Naval Petty Officers and three seamen.
- Initially they were held in Grini concentration camp.
- This was the same camp where, in January 1943, the Germans executed five commando survivors of Operation Freshman.
- However, Godwin and his comrades were not executed at Grini, but instead sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where contrary to the Geneva Convention, they were forced to march 30 miles a day on cobbles testing army boots. On 2 February 1945 they were led to execution, in accordance with Hitler's Commando Order of 1942.
- Godwin managed to wrestle the pistol of the firing party commander from his belt and shot him dead before being himself shot.
- No superior officer witnessed this act so a decoration could not be awarded.
- However, his bravery was mentioned in dispatches (posthumously).
- The citation, in The London Gazette, 9 October 1945, read: "For great gallantry and inspiring example whilst a prisoner of war in German hands in Norway and afterwards at Sachsenhausen, near Oranienburg, Germany, 1942–1945".
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