Remembrance Day is a day for giving thanks and expressing gratitude, acknowledging sacrifice, loss and the horrors of war. The man who wrote this song, Roger Waters, was a five month old baby when his father was killed serving his country during World War II. Eric Fletcher Waters (1914-1944), the son of a coal miner and Labour Party activist, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, and a Communist Party member. In the early years of the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitz. He later changed his stance on pacifism and joined the British Army, and as a 2Lt. of the 8th Royal Fusiliers died at Aprilia, between Anzio and Rome in Italy, on 18 February 1944. On that day a Mother and a Father lost a child, siblings lost a brother, a wife lost her husband and a little boy lost his Daddy. Today we take a moment to reflect on sacrifice and loss and pledge our support to those families and folks who have given and continue to give. Thank you. Lest we forget #RemembranceDay
“When The Tigers Broke Free” by Roger Waters
“It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in black ‘forty four.
When the forward commander
Was told to sit tight
When he asked that his men be withdrawn.
And the Generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
The enemy tanks for a while.
And the Anzio bridgehead
Was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives.
And kind old King George
Sent Mother a note
When he heard that father was gone.
It was, I recall,
In the form of a scroll,
With gold leaf adorned,
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
And my eyes still grow damp to remember
His Majesty signed
With his own rubber stamp.
It was dark all around.
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free.
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company Z.
They were all left behind,
Most of them dead,
The rest of them dying.
And that’s how the High Command
Took my daddy from me”
