WW2 100 – 15 October 1944 – ‘A Budleigh man remembered in the Scottish Highlands’: Private Albert George Watkins (1915-44) 1st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment

Continued from 5 October 1944.

PRIVATE LEONARD THOMAS LEY (1913-44)

1st Battalion, the King's Own Royal Regiment (the Lancaster Regiment).

https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/04/ww2-75-5-october-1944-grave-on-adriatic.html

  

 

 

Budleigh Salterton War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill

My research into Albert Watkins’ wartime service raised many questions. For some time I saw him as one of the War Memorial’s ‘orphans’: his name was listed simply as A.G. Watkins, and gave no helpful clues as where he might have died. Others had found the same problem: the Devon Heritage website gave his death as ‘Not yet confirmed’.  

A few helpful details suddenly emerged when Budleigh resident Kevin Curran kindly sent me the copy of a news item published in the Exmouth Journal, dated 11 November 1944. The item reported ‘the death on active service of Pte. Albert Watkins, The Devonshire Regiment, whose death took place in India, previous to which he had served three years in Gibraltar’.

At last one could find Albert – or rather, Bert, as his family knew him – on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) database. He is listed there as a member of the 1^st Battalion of The Devonshire Regiment. But three years in Gibraltar? Records of that Battalion, as published by The Keep Military Museum, state clearly that it spent the whole of WW2 in India.

The Regiment’s 4^th Battalion, on the other hand, was in Gibraltar from 28 May 1940 to 24 April 1943. Could the newspaper have made a mistake?

From Bert’s entry on the CWGC website, we learn that his wife was Margaret, of Achiltibuie – described on Wikipedia as a long linear village in Ross and Cromarty, on the Coigach coast of northwestern Scotland. Further digging led me to find, this time thanks to Google rather than to a local resident, a four-page profile of Bert! It had already been very competently written in the publication ‘Coigach’s sacrifice in the second world war’ by local history researcher Clare Church, reproduced on the Ross and Cromarty Heritage Society’s website.

 

The Summer Isles and Torridon. Image credit: www.achiltibuie.net

Coigach, as I discovered from wonderful Wikipedia, is a peninsula north of Ullapool, in Wester Ross in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The area consists of a traditional crofting and fishing community of a couple of hundred houses located between mountain and shore on a peninsula looking over the Summer Isles and the sea.

It sounds idyllic but different in many ways from Budleigh, and very distant. But Clare Church felt that Bert’s connection to Coigach deserved a mention. And that suited me very well because so much work on him had been done.  I hoped that I could use some of the work in my own profile of Bert, as well as contributing a few extra bits.

A vital piece of information in Clare Church’s research was given in Bert’s death certificate, which listed him in October 1944 as attached to the 7^th Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment. There was no mention of this on the CWGC record.

There was still that odd mention in the Exmouth Journal of Bert’s three years in Gibraltar. But meanwhile let’s look at his life in Budleigh.  

Thanks to Clare Church’s work, we know that Bert was born in the summer of 1915.  His parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Ann Watkins (née Davies). His twin brother was Walter Victor; the twins’ two elder siblings were John Noel, born in 1913, and Irene, born in 1912.  

 

St Peter’s School, Budleigh Salterton

The family home was at 1, Greenway Lane in Budleigh, not far from St Peter’s School on Moor Lane, which he attended in the mid-1920s.    

Here he is, circled, in a 1926-27 photo of St Peter’s School football team, from Fairlynch Museum’s collection. The photo also shows George Palmer, who as Major Palmer would be killed in Normandy in 1944. You can read about him here 

As for Bert Watts in the photo, could he be related to F.J. Watts whose name appears on Budleigh’s War Memorial? Sadly, nothing seems to be known about him, and so he remains one of my ‘orphans’ at the time of writing. One day, perhaps, F.J. Watts will be given a first name and information will be provided about his wartime service.

 

Back row: Bill Harding, Monty Brooks, Arthur Henry Benoke, Eddie Butcher, Dennis Youden, ? Clarke, ?, ?.

Front row: Bill Hunt, Ted Witherby, ? Havill, Bert (Albert George) Watkins, Leonard Pyne, Arthur Pantoll, ?. 

At the end of the playing field, beside the Exmouth-Budleigh railway, was the vegetable allotment belonging to the school. This photo, also from Fairlynch Museum's collection, shows St Peter’s School gardeners in 1926, and is particularly interesting because Bert’s father, Thomas Watkins is recorded as a gardener by profession. 

And there is his son, appropriately in the centre, sitting on the wheelbarrow and holding a watering can. Some names need to be put to faces in the photo, but now Bert’s name can be added to Fairlynch Museum records.  

 

 

Bert and Maggie Watkins’ marriage certificate. Image credit: Clare Church; Ross & Cromarty Heritage Society

Bert himself, at the age of 24, was recorded as a gardener on his marriage certificate when he married Margaret – known to family as Maggie – MacLeod on 29 April 1940. Two years older than him, she was the daughter of Duncan MacLeod, a crofter, and his wife Isabella – known as Bella – from Achiltibuie. At the time of the marriage, Maggie’s address was given as ‘Kingsgate’, Granary Lane. The house still has that name, though it is actually at 31 Stoneborough Lane.  Clare Church suggests that Maggie may have been in domestic service in Budleigh Salterton, although no occupation is given on the marriage certificate.

Maggie’s parents, Duncan and Bella, do not appear to have attended the wedding in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh, and the witnesses to the marriage were given as Denis Jack Goulden and Harry James Vinnicombe. Tragically, just over a month later, on 4 June, 1940, Maggie’s younger brother Alexander MacLeod, serving with the 4^th Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders would be killed in France, aged only 23.

It was not an auspicious start to Bert and Maggie’s married life. But a year after their wedding, in 1941, their son Alexander Bruce was born, and later they had a daughter, Heather.  

As far as his wartime service is concerned, we have to assume that if the Exmouth Journal was correct and Bert had spent two years in Gibraltar, he would have been in the 4^th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. But the 4^th Battalion, apart from Gibraltar, was never posted abroad; after its return to England in June 1943 it moved to Barnard Castle and then in December to Eastbourne, expecting to play a part in the invasion of Europe, but they remained in Sussex until April 1945, providing drafts to other battalions. They were preparing to embark for Japan when the atom bombs ended the war.

 

Cap badge of the Devonshire Regiment. Image credit: Wikipedia

Assuming that Bert’s CWGC record is correct he may well have known Budleigh man Reginald Leonard Critchard, both of them serving at the beginning of WW2 in India with the 1^st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. You can read about Reginald here 

The 1^st Battalion of which Bert and Reginald were members had a long association with India, having served there since 1929. Military training for British servicemen in India had the advantage of having large open spaces for manoeuvres, as opposed to back home.  

 

7th (Bengal) Mountain Battery going into action near Kaniguram, Waziristan, 1920

Oil on canvas by Ralph N Webber, 1984. This painting depicts Indian Army gunners leading mules carrying artillery and equipment up a hillside.  From the collection of the National Army Museum

In addition, it was felt that there was a need for British troops to maintain the prestige of the Crown in the days of the Raj. News of the threat to the British Empire posed by its enemies during WW1 had no doubt reached tribes on the mountainous North-West frontier and had increased unrest in that area. Lance Dennys, a future General in the Indian Army who had grown up in Budleigh, saw the seriousness of the problem.  

'In future campaigns on the frontier we may encounter tribesmen, either equipped themselves with, or supported by other troops possessing modern artillery and aircraft,’ he wrote, as Major L.E. Dennys, in an essay for a 1929 competition organised by the Journal of the United Service Institute of India (JUSII).   ‘How can we best, both on the march and in bivouac, combine protective measures to safeguard ourselves against tribal tactics, as we have known them in the past, supported by such modern weapons.’ Quoted in ‘Passing It On: The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare (1995) Timothy Robert Moreman MA (PhD thesis King’s College, London University).  

The area remained troublesome up to WW2 and beyond. In what became known as the Waziristan Campaign, the British Army waged an unsuccessful war from 1936 to 1939 against Mirza Ali Khan, a mullah and so-called Fakir of Ipi who had united the warring tribes of the mountainous province of Waziristan. 

The government increased the number of both British and Indian troops in the area to reinforce the garrisons at Razmak and other towns near the Afghan border, but guerrilla warfare conducted by Pashtun tribes against the British continued and the Fakir of Ipi was never captured. You can read about Major General Lancelot Dennys here 

The outbreak of war in September 1939 found the 1^st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment at Rawalpindi in India, training to become a motorised machine gun battalion which would enable them to reach quickly any part of the front where the enemy threatened to break through.   

I have not discovered when Bert joined up, but the chances are that he would have done initial training at barracks in Honiton and/or Exeter. His Service Number was 5628256. He would have sailed by troopship to India, with shore leave possibly at a port in South Africa on the way.

At this stage of WW2 there was nothing to suggest that the Middle and Far East would become a seat of conflict. In April 1940 the Battalion moved 40 miles north to Abbotabad where they trained in mountain warfare.

 

The Razmak Gate. This is one of 12 photographs taken by an Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO), possibly Sergeant H Smith, 1st Battalion 60th Rifles.  From the collection of the National Army Museum

Then came a move in September to the North West Frontier near Razmak, where the main garrison of Waziristan had been established in January 1923 after the tribal uprising of 1919-1920. It was a self-contained cantonment, capable of holding 10,000 men. New roads linking the garrisons and camps in the area had been constructed to permit speedier troop movements and trying to keep the roads open meant that British soldiers were often in action against the local tribesmen. 

By 1941 it was clear that the North-West Frontier would play no part in the principal operations of WW2. North Africa seemed to be the most likely destination for the  Battalion. To train for desert warfare it moved in April over 200 miles south, to Jullundur in the Punjab, where temperatures in the summer reach an average high of around 48 °C (118 °F).

 

El Alamein 1942: British infantry advances through the dust and smoke of the battle. Image credit: Sergeant Chetwyn, 

No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit - This is photograph E 18474 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-32)

Had Japan not been involved in WW 2, Reginald and Bert in the 1^st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment would have fought in the heat and dust of North Africa, in scenes like the above from the Second Battle of El Alamein.  

But the Battalion was destined to fight elsewhere. On 8 December the British government declared war on the Empire of Japan, following the Japanese attacks on British Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong on the previous day.

 

Electrical equipment and oil installations at Yenanguang being destroyed as part of the ‘scorched earth’ policy, in the face of the Japanese advance. Official photographer of No.9 Army Film and Photographic Unit - Imperial War Museum Collections Online at Reference No. K 2204

With the bombing of Rangoon on 23 December and the invasion of Burma the Battalion was preparing to embark for that country to repel the Japanese forces. However, Rangoon was evacuated on 7 March 1942 after the destruction of its port and oil refinery and the Battalion moved further south again, eventually embarking for Ceylon – now known as Sri Lanka.  Here they settled into jungle training with the specific aim of learning how to counter and engage the Japanese.

Some of the training would have been valuable, but no doubt some was of dubious quality and was intended to build up the confidence of troops who would face an unknown enemy. Denis Price served in the 1^st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment and, according to his son, in a BBC People’s War Series recording of 2006, was fond of repeating the story of how intelligence officers would brief recruits on the shortcomings of Japanese soldiers. They were, apparently, ‘all short with bad eyesight from eating too much rice so don't worry too much'. Discovering the truth about the enemy when they gingerly approached dead Japanese bodies made Denis and his fellow-soldiers realise that the ‘intelligence’ was ‘either morale boosting fibs or just ignorance or a bit of both’.

The 1^st Battalion finally reached Burma in the late summer of 1943. It formed part of the 80th Indian Infantry Brigade, which had been created in India in April 1942, and assigned to the 20th Indian Infantry Division, part of the Indian Army.  Serving alongside it in the Brigade at this time were the 9^th Battalion of the 12^th Frontier Force Regiment, and the 3^rd Battalion of the 1^st Gurkha Rifles.

Bert Watkins’ death certificate. Image credit: Clare Church; Ross and Cromarty Heritage Society

Thanks to researcher Clare Church’s publication of Bert’s death certificate we know that he was attached to the 7^th Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment, but we do not know when he moved to the new regiment.  As Clare Church writes, it is not known whether Albert left the UK with the 1^st Devons, or was attached to the 7^th South Lancs before departure. I do not have access to his service record.

 

Cap badge of the South Lancashire Regiment . Image credit: Dormskirk; Wikipedia

The 7^th Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment had been raised in 1940 as part of the 204^th Infantry Brigade, redesignated the 185^th Infantry Brigade on 1 September 1942. On 31 August 1943, the Battalion left Liverpool for Bombay, where it received orders that it was earmarked for internal security duties at Jubbulpore and Nagpur in central India.

It then became a training battalion with the 52^nd Infantry Brigade, which was formed at Budni in Bhopal State for training British infantry replacements in jungle warfare for the British Fourteenth Army. Other units in the Brigade were the 20^th Battalion The Royal Fusiliers, and the 12^th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters.

 

Bert Watkins' grave in Kirkee War Cemetery, near Poona, India. The headstone bears the moving inscription: ‘Sleep on, dear Bert. Whilst my life remains I will always think of you.’  Image credit: Tony Beck; Ross and Cromarty Heritage Society

Bert never rejoined the 1^st Devons because he died on 15 October 1944, aged 29.  The death certificate states that the cause of death was polio encephalitis or inflammation of the brain. He was initially buried at Bairagarh near Bhopal, where there was a military hospital for Italian prisoners of war, and it is likely that he received treatment there.

 

Kirkee War Cemetery, near Poona, India. Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Later, his body was transferred to Kirkee War Cemetery, which was created to receive WW2 graves from the western and central parts of India where their permanent maintenance could not be assured. The cemetery contains 1,668 Commonwealth, one Polish and one American burial of WW2.

Clare Church notes that Maggie returned to Achiltibuie and married for the second time Johnny ‘Neil’ Macleod in 1949. He came from Polbain, a village next to Achiltibuie. They went to live in Ullapool, still in Ross and Cromarty, and had a son Neil. Maggie was widowed again in the early 60s. She died in 2010.

As for Bert’s parents, according to parish records Thomas Watkins died on 6 September 1948, aged 78, at 1 Greenway Lane. His wife Elizabeth Ann died on 14 October 1961 at the age of 89 and at that stage was living at 4 Greenway Lane. No grave in St Peter’s Burial Ground is listed for them.

 

The next post is for LIEUTENANT HARRY ROYSTON BARTLETT (1924-44), who died on 1 November 1944, after being wounded at Salerno, Italy, while serving with 41 Commando, Royal Marines. You can read about him at  https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/09/ww2-757-brave-royal-marine-wounded-at.html