"One of the last surviving commandos who took part in the famed World War Two St Nazaire raid has died at a Midlands nursing home. Bill “Tiger” Watson passed away on Saturday, December 8, at the age of 97. Breaking the news, son Peter described the hero as a “rather splendid chap”. Bill, a second lieutenant with No.2 Commando, was among the brave band who took part in the raid on the Nazi-held French port of St Nazaire, dubbed “Operation Chariot”, on March 28, 1942. The dry dock was targeted because it was used to repair Third Reich battleships. With St Nazaire out of action, those ships would have to return to home waters to be worked on – and that would mean running the gauntlet of the Royal Navy fleet. Obsolete destroyer HMS Campbeltown, crammed with delayed action explosives, deliberately rammed into the dock gates. Hours later, the arsenal exploded, crippling St Nazaire for the rest of the war. The commando force landed in small craft, hell-bent on destruction. In the battle that followed, nearly all the boats that transported the brave raiders were destroyed. The commandos had no way of returning to England. They could only fight their way through the town to try to escape overland. After the war, Watson, who received the Military Cross for his bravery, worked as a GP in Shrewsbury. His wife, Wyn, was also a doctor. Of the 611 men who took part in the raid, only 228 made it back home. During the fighting , 169 were killed and 215 taken prisoner. German casualties were higher, with 360 losing their lives, a number of them in the HMS Campbeltown blast. Tiger Watson, in command of a protection party, was wounded in the action and, after treatment, was put to work on a PoW camp’s medical wing: he was a medical student before the war and a doctor after it. He got his nickname because colleagues thought his smile was like cartoon character “Tiger Tim”." www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/ww2-st-nazaire-commando-dies-15631000?fbclid=IwAR0F8piYrxg56DmdOx53UAzK3FDyr0ph8_6UMC51d-J0t-xfJJ3Hk2mqyDU
