[My grandmother] was just a teenager when, whilst running messages from post to post, over the rubble and through the sewers, she shot her first German. People's War memories »

After the suburbs of Mokotow and Zoliborz fell earlier this week, the city centre became the final rebel stronghold to give in.

An official message from Commander of the Polish Home Army Colonel Monter on behalf of leader of the uprising General Bor said: "Warsaw has fallen after having exhausted all means of fighting and all food supplies on the 63rd day of her heroic struggle against the overwhelming superiority of the enemy."

His statement was followed by a more detailed version of events from the Polish Prime Minister in exile Stanislaus Mikolajczyk.

Speaking from London, he said military operations has ceased because food, water and ammunition supplies had been exhausted and "all hope of outside relief had vanished".

Attempts by Polish troops working together with Soviet forces to establish a bridgehead across the River Vistula were forced back under heavy fire from the Germans.

He said thousand of wounded people lay in underground hide-outs with no medical help.

He praised the bravery of the capital's people in putting up such a long resistance with no heavy armoury and little outside help.

"The defence of Warsaw will remain for ever a testimony to the invincible moral strength of the Polish nation and its unyielding will to independent life," he said.

Two days ago a last desperate appeal for Soviet aid was made in Moscow.

The chairman of the Soviet-backed Communist Polish Committee of National Liberation, known as the Lublin Committee, said Allied aid from East and West was urgently needed to avert "a tragedy of the first magnitude".

Edward Osubka-Morawski said the scorched earth policy adopted by Soviet forces in Poland had led to famine and disease in his homeland and the Soviet Union would be the main source of aid to Poland.

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