Ralph William Burdick Izzard, OBE (27 August 1910 – 2 December 1992) was an English journalist, author, adventurer and, during World War II, a British Naval Intelligence officer.

His father, Percy Izzard, was the Daily Mail's highly respected gardening correspondent (claimed by Ralph to have been the inspiration of William Boot in the Evelyn Waugh novel Scoop).

It has been speculated that in addition to performing his actual duties with the Daily Mail, Izzard used the position as a cover while engaged in intelligence operations for MI6.

At the onset of World War II, Izzard joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves as an Ordinary Seaman, and qualified as a gunner but was soon commissioned a Sub-Lieutenant, eventually ascending to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in a position with British Naval Intelligence.

[5][7] Ralph Izzard was recruited to the Naval Intelligence Division and 30 Assault Unit by Ian Fleming due, in some measure, to his ability to speak fluent German, as well as his expert knowledge of Berlin and its society.

Izzard regularly participated in the questioning of PoWs and provided detailed reports to his superiors regarding intelligence obtained as a result of interrogation.

[14] In a BBC Radio 4 program called The Bond Correspondence broadcast on 24 May 2008, Lucy Fleming, the niece of Ian Fleming, stated that the plan was cancelled because the Royal Air Force concluded that a downed Heinkel bomber dropped into the English Channel would sink rather than float, posing too great a danger to the lives of British operatives.

[16] In 1945, Izzard accompanied by naturalist C. R. Stonor took a pseudo-scientific expedition to the Silo (Ziro) Valley of Arunachal Pradesh to search for evidence for the Buru, a legendary lizard creature.