Joan Whittington

Joan Whittington CBE (died 1980, aged 73) was an aid worker with the Red Cross. She joined the Red Cross in 1928 and at the start of World War II, aged 32, became a voluntary nursing assistant, and was sent to Cairo, Egypt. and the worked in Tripoli, Italy, and Greece. At the end of the war, she began to work on expanding the Red Cross' overseas operations, eventually rising to become its Director of Overseas Branches. She appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 31 October 1970. She was also a magistrate and Chairman of the Bench in Oxfordshire, and was active in the Scout movement. She was successively made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE; 1945), Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE; 1955) and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE; 1963). She also held the Red Cross' Badge of Honour Class 1, its highest award. She died on 23 March 1980. The Jeep she used in World War II is in the Imperial War Museum, London.