THE DEATH HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED OF MAJOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR TASKER WATKINS VC, GBE, 5TH BN, THE WELCH REGIMENT, WHO WON HIS VICTORIA CROSS IN NORTH WEST EUROPE IN AUGUST 1944. |
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10 September 2007 |
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Sir Tasker Watkins, the former Deputy Chief Justice of England and Lord Justice of Appeal died aged 88, yesterday, the 9th September 2007. He was awarded a Victoria Cross for his conduct during the North West Campaign of 1944-45 when commanding a company of the 1 / 5th Battalion, Welch Regiment. Tasker Watkins was born at Nelson, Glamorgan, on the 18th November 1918 and was educated at Pontypridd Grammer School. After the outbreak of the Second World War he served in the ranks from October 1939 until May 1941, when he was granted an emergency commission as a second lieutenant in the Welch Regiment. In 1943 he attended the Advanced Handling and Fieldcraft School at Llanberis, Caernarfornshire, then worked as an instructor in the rifle wing of the school. In June 1944 Watkins was posted to 103 Reinforcement Group in Normandy, joining the 1 / 5th Bn, Welch Regiment in July. |
For the award of the Victoria Cross. [ London Gazette, 2 November 1944 ], Barfour, Normandy, France, 16 August 1944, Lieutenant Tasker Watkins, 1st / 5th Bn, The Welch Regiment.
In North-West Europe on the evening, of 16th August 1944, Lieutenant Watkins was commanding a company of the Welch Regiment. The battalion was ordered to attack objectives near the railway at Bafour. Lieutenant Watkin's company had to cross open cornfields in which booby-traps had been set. It was not yet dusk and the company soon came under heavy machine-gun fire from posts in the corn and farther back, and also fire from an 88 mm. gun: many casualties were caused and the advance was slowed up.
Tasker Watkins was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on the 8th March 1945.
Demobbed in 1946, Tasker Watkins read for the Bar. He was called by Middle Temple in 1948 and started practising in common law on the Wales and Chester Circuit. After taking Silk in 1965 he moved to chambers at No. 1 Crown Office Row in the Temple. He was knighted in 1971 and was sworn of the Privy Council on his appointment to the Court of Appeal in 1980. He was appointed GBE in 1990. Following a service of commemoration in Cardiff's Llandaf Cathedral on Saturday, 14th September, Sir Tasker Watkins was cremated in the city's Thornhill Crematorium the following day.
Medal entitlement of Major The Rt Hon Sir Tasker Watkins - 1 / 5th Bn, The Welch Regiment
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Iain Stewart, 10 September 2007