Eric Fletcher Waters

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Eric Fletcher Waters (born 1913 - died February 18, 1944) was a soldier in World War II. He was the father of Roger Waters, an English rock musician and songwriter, and was a major influence on his songwriting, despite not having known his son beyond five months of age. Little is known about him except through the music of Roger Waters in the band Pink Floyd.

[edit] Biography

He 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. Despite being a communist and a pacifist, he nonetheless fought in World War II, 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 February 18, 1944, and is commemorated on Panel 5 of the Cassino Memorial, suggesting that his body was never found.

[edit] Pink Floyd tributes to Eric Fletcher Waters

"Free Four", a song on the 1972 album Obscured by Clouds
"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.