Severn Hospice staff 'forever grateful' for Shrewsbury war hero
The Severn Hospice has paid tribute to war-hero Dr Bill 'Tiger' Watson, saying it will be "forever grateful" for his work.
Dr Watson MBE, a Shrewsbury GP, died aged 97, last week.
He was known for his part in the legendary Second World War 'St Nazaire raid', during which he was shot and captured by German forces.
After returning from the war he became a doctor in the county town in 1952, with his wife Wyn, who was also a doctor, with a practice in St John's Hill.
He was later a founding member of the Severn Hospice, and received the MBE for his efforts with the organisation in 2002.
Dr Watson worked in both clinical and volunteering roles for the hospice.
His work had also included volunteering as a locum in Biafra and serving on behalf of Oxfam in Ethiopia during the famine of 1973.
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He and Mrs Watson, who died six weeks ago, aged 95, also worked to treat people with leprosy.
Severn Hospice chief executive Heather Palin said the organisation would be "forever grateful" for his work.
She said: “Bill has been a true friend to the hospice from the very beginning.
"Not only was he part of our foundation, he was one of our first senior doctors.
"He continued to work tirelessly for the hospice, as a trustee and then as a volunteer driver and latterly as our vice-president.
"It was a privilege to have known him and the hospice family will be forever grateful for his commitment to our cause."
The St Naziare Raid saw Dr Watson among 611 British soldiers and sailors who, in March 1942, mounted what became known as ‘The Greatest Raid of All’, code-named Operation Chariot. It was a daring sea-to-land attack on German naval positions in occupied France.
The aim was to destroy the huge, heavily defended dry dock at Saint-Nazaire on the Loire estuary, which was large enough to take the German battleship Tirpitz.
If the dock had remained intact, the Tirpitz could have attacked British merchant ships in the Atlantic.
The dock was too complex to bomb from the air so, in what looked like a madcap mission, a force of Commandos and naval personnel sailed in 18 small military launches 250 miles from Britain to Normandy and up the River Loire to Saint-Nazaire to do the job.
They took with them an elderly destroyer, HMS Campbeltown, which was packed with delayed action explosives and rammed it into the dock gates where it later exploded, putting the dock out of service for the rest of the war.
Twenty-year-old Commando ‘Tiger’ Watson – so-called not for his ferocity but because his smile reminded his commanding officer of the comic-book character Tiger Tim – was one of the first to go ashore that night at Saint-Nazaire.
As a 2nd lieutenant in the Black Watch, he led a five-man protection team assigned to provide covering fire to the British demolition squads.
When his Tommy gun finally ran out of ammunition, he was felled by a German bullet which passed straight through his left arm. He was later awarded a Military Cross for his bravery during the raid.
