Tasker Watkins

He was given the service number 187088.

He was posted to the regiment's 1/5th Battalion, a Territorial Army (TA) unit.

Sir Tasker Watkins (18 November 1918 – 9 September 2007) was a Welsh Lord Justice of Appeal and deputy Lord Chief Justice.

In 1931 he moved with his parents to Dagenham in east London.

He attended school in Romford where he captained the cricket and football teams and played rugby.

After leaving school he worked for export agents and a halibut oil company and became a teacher in London.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Watkins joined the British Army, initially as a private in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, in October.

After serving for over a year as a private he was sent for officer training and was commissioned, with the rank of second lieutenant, into the Welch Regiment on 17 May 1941.

The division, then commanded by Major General Gerard Bucknall, was serving in Northern Ireland until moving to Wales late in 1941, and then to Kent in April 1942, where it remained for over two years before it saw action, until then being engaged in training and military exercises.

As a lieutenant, Watkins departed for France with the rest of the 53rd Division, commanded by Major General Robert Knox Ross, arriving in late June 1944, just weeks after the D-Day landings.

The division participated in a number of engagements, such as the Second Battle of the Odon, and, in August, the battle of the Falaise Pocket.

Watkins' active service ended in October 1944 when he was badly wounded in the battle to liberate the Dutch city of 'sHertogenbosch, where a memorial service was held for him in St. John's Cathedral in 2007.

He rarely spoke about the war.

He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1948.

Of the event which led to him being awarded the VC he simply stated, in a 1955 radio interview:

A good memory is a fine thing but for those who were there it should not be too good.

It should be good enough, however, to recall the great comradeship we had and which we shall never experience again.

Watkins was deputy chairman of Radnorshire Quarter Sessions between 1962 and 1971, and of Carmarthenshire Quarter Sessions from 1966 until 1971.

He became a Queen's Counsel on 27 April 1965, and in 1966-67 was Counsel to the Tribunal on the inquiry into the Aberfan disaster, which happened a few miles from his birthplace.

He was Recorder of Merthyr Tydfil between 1968 and 1970 and of Swansea during 1970 and 1971.

He was Leader of the Wales and Chester Circuit from 1970–71.

In 1971, he was appointed to the High Court bench, where he sat in the Family Division between 1971 and 1974, and thereafter, until 1980, in the Queen's Bench Division.

He was President of the Welsh Rugby Union from 1993 to 2004.

During the Second World War, he served in the British Army and was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for valour in the face of the enemy.

A war hero who was prominent in the law and in Rugby Union, Watkins was described as The Greatest Living Welshman.

Watkins was born in the small town of Nelson, Glamorgan, the son of Bertram Watkins, an engine fitter, and his wife Jane Watkins, née Phillips.

He won a scholarship to Pontypridd Boys' Grammar School.

He stated in another interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2001:

You must believe me when I say it was just another day in the life of a soldier.

I did what needed doing to help colleagues and friends, just as others looked out for me during the fighting that summer... I didn't wake up the next day a better or braver person, just different.

I'd seen more killing and death in 24 hours−indeed been part of that terrible process−than is right for anybody.

From that point onwards I have tried to take a more caring view of my fellow human beings, and that, of course, always includes your opponent, whether it be in war, sport, or just life generally.

Wales rugby coach Graham Henry had Watkins' citation pinned up on the wall of the Welsh changing room before Six Nations encounters.

Watkins' VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery in the Imperial War Museum.

Watkins later achieved the rank of major, and on leaving the Army, studied law.

The battalion was one of three (the others being the 4th Welch Regiment and the 2nd Monmouthshire Regiment) which formed part of the 160th Infantry Brigade, itself being one of three brigades (the others being the 158th and 159th) forming the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division.

By mid-August Watkins, commanding "B" Company in his battalion, which had by now been transferred from the 160th Brigade to the 158th Brigade, was one officer in a group leading an assault on a German machine gun post.

After the other officers were killed in the approach, Watkins continued to lead the group, leading a bayonet charge against 50 armed enemy infantry and then single-handedly taking out a machine-gun post to ensure the safety of his unit.

He was the first Welsh member of the British Army to be awarded a VC during the Second World War.

His citation read: