Eric Fletcher Waters

Eric Fletcher Waters (born 1913 - died 18 February 1944) was a soldier in the British Army during World War II. He was the father of Roger Waters, an English rock musician and songwriter best known as the bassist and main lyricist of Pink Floyd. Roger Waters was deeply affected by the circumstances of his father's death, which proved to be a major influence on his songwriting, despite his father not having known him beyond five months of age. Little is known about Eric Fletcher Waters except through Waters' songs. Pink Floyd's 1983 album "The Final Cut" is dedicated to him.

Biography

Waters was born in 1913, and went to school in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, before winning a scholarship to Durham University. He had two children, Roger and John (a taxi driver), by his wife, Mary. Waters was a committed Christian and pacifist and during the early years of World War II he was a conscientious objector and was consequently exempted from military service, instead working as an ambulance driver at home in Cambridge. During the course of the war however Waters became increasingly involved in left-wing politics and eventually joined the British Communist Party. Waters' increasingly left-wing political stance made him more ardently anti-fascist and he began to reassess his feelings regarding active service in the fight against Nazi Germany. ["The Dark Side of the Moon: The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece" by John Harris, Harper Perennial (2005), pp. 44-45.] Eventually, Waters abandoned his strictly pacifist stance and enlisted in the British Army, serving in Company C of the 8th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), in which he held a rank of Second Lieutenant. He died in action at Anzio on 18 February 1944, and is commemorated on Panel 5 of the Cassino Memorial, suggesting that his body was never found.

Pink Floyd tributes to Eric Fletcher Waters

*"Free Four", a song on the 1972 album "Obscured by Clouds" has the lyrics "You are the Angel of Death/I am the dead man's son"
*"Us and Them", a song on the 1973 album "Dark Side of the Moon"
*"Another Brick in the Wall, Part I", a song on the 1979 album "The Wall"
*"When the Tigers Broke Free", a song on the soundtrack to the 1982 film "The Wall"
*"The Fletcher Memorial Home", a song on the 1983 album "The Final Cut"
*The 1983 album "The Final Cut", which is directly dedicated to Eric Fletcher Waters.

Waters' 1992 solo album "Amused to Death" has an implicit reference to Eric Fletcher Waters in the form of an opening monologue by Alfred Charles Razzell on "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" Like Lt. Eric Waters, Alf Razzell served in the Eighth Battalion, Royal Fusiliers although in World War I. In the monologue Razzell recounts an episode in the Battle of the Somme where he was forced to abandon a mortally wounded soldier, Private William Hubbard, in no-man's land. Hubbard is memorialized on the Arras Memorial in France implying that his remains, like those of Lt. Waters, were never recovered.

Notes

References

* [http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2099066 Eric Fletcher Waters' Casualty Details]