Wacław Kopisto

Wacław Kopisto
Wacław Kopisto, nom de guerre Kra (NAC)
Born	(1911-02-08)8 February 1911 Józin, Starokonstantynów, Poland
Died	23 February 1993(1993-02-23) (aged 82) Rzeszów, Poland
Other names	vel Wacław Jaworski
Known for	Cichociemni

Major Wacław Kopisto a.k.a. Wacław Jaworski, nom de guerre Kra (8 February 1911 – 23 February 1993) was an officer of the Polish Army in interwar Poland, infantry captain, and an underground soldier of the elite Polish Cichociemni unit (the Silent Unseen) during the occupation of Poland in World War II.

In 1934–35 Kopisto attended the Podchorąży military academy in Tarnopol. In 1939 he fought in the September Campaign defending Poland around the town of Podkarpacie. Following Poland's defeat by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, he escaped to Hungary, then to France, and finally Great Britain, where he became a Polish Armed Forces in the West parachutist. He was deployed back to Poland on the night of 2 September 1942 in the area of Grójec.

Kopisto took part in several spectacular military actions in Volhynia against the occupying German forces as well as the collaborationist units of the UPA. On the 20 January 1943 he was involved in the rescue of Polish prisoners of war from Wachlarz of the Armia Krajowa who were being held and tortured at the Pińsk prison. The first platoon of Cichociemni rescuers drove undetected through the prison gate in an Opel car, while dressed in the SS uniforms and shouting at the guards in German. Once inside the compound, they shot the commandant who refused to cooperate. They opened the prison cells and released the inmates who were loaded onto a lorry they had requisitioned and they drove away ten minutes before the German reinforcements arrived. Two days later, on 22 January 1943 the SS executed 30 local civilian hostages in retaliation.