WAR AND OUR FAMILY
Military service both during war and as national service.
At the very beginning of our recorded family tree we learn of a Skirving having died in 1745 in the Battle of Culloden. Details of the battle and its historical context of Scotland's development are easy to find. But I just cannot find anything to substantiate it. If you visit the battle site you will see marker stone of Clans or Clan groups. Significant names on both sides are known, but so many remain unrecorded. Just where does our Skirving fit in? Which side? It is just not as simple as those fighting for Bonnie Prince Charlie defending insurgents from England. (Also see SKIRVINGS IN SCOTLAND).
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Culloden/
Trevor Boyle's book "Culloden: Scotland's Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire" is excellent and gives perspectives of the event and its repercussions way beyond Stuarts and Hanoverians. In fact some perhaps surprising effects were the military skills and international ambitions that became the British Empire. And it is that which we find in various spots in our family story.
Then when we look at the Crawfords in Belfast we find bayonets hidden from security officers - but do not know why they had them. I have one of those bayonets.
Millers, Watsons, Newmans and others ended up in various parts of the world. And some fought to create those conditions, benefited from their predeceoors or defended the realm.
The Watsons and Scotts had not yet intermarried, but both famlies developed naval careers with Plymouth being the main base. Through this my father had found a link to a Dr Scott who had attended Lord Nelson when he died (although he also thought that there were two Dr Scotts on board, one a medical and one a theological doctore). While it appears that Scotts did have naval careers at this time and even medical careers, unfortunately this story has been found to be erroneous.
We find James Watson at sea patrolling south America and the Far East. He is covered under WATSON, JAMES AT SEA.
We see Cuthbert Crawford as a police reservist on duty in Bechuanaland (now Botwana) during attempts to extend mining rights with people like him securing the peace.
I am myself a son of the British Empire having grown up in colonial South Africa. My immediate ancestors there found a country already stable and "independent" if still within the Empire, but consider how the country got there. And what happened later. I did my national service in the South African Navy and got in through reference to a relative in the Royal Navy during WWII - Uncle Noggs Newman.
Some of those above are discussed in their own sections.
My focus here is mainly during World War Two with my father and his brothers and an uncle off to serve in the colonial forces for Britain against Nazism. As their stories overlap, I have chosen to cover that aspect of their lives here in a section dedicated to their military participation.
I have a disproportional amount of information on my father's role in WWII simply because he kept much on it, but others also played their part in different ways.
Alexander and Maud Watson had five sons :
Jack Montague Watson b 4th April 1912
George Dennison ('Dennis') Watson b 22nd January 1914
Reginald Scott Watson b 22nd January 1914 [twin]
Brian Watson Watson b 14th February 1920
Edward Graham Watson b 60th June 1921
Jack Watson
In his letter to my father dated 24/5/94, Jack mentions having joined the army in Pretoria in 1939. My father's notes record him leaving East London in mid-1940 with the 6th Motor Transport Company.
Scott and Dennis Watson
Again from my father's notes :
In April 1935 he left to join the Government Miners Training College at Modder B near Benoni [at the instigation of cousin Bill Tucker then at the Chamber of Mines] Having been trained in the R N V R [S A] as an Active Citizen Force member before the war, Scott remained at the Mines until 1942 when the Government allowed his release from the Mines to join the South African Forces. He was seconded to the Royal Navy and was trained as Sub-Lieut in Port Elizabeth and spent the rest of the war guarding Malinde and other East African ports in charge of a harbour defence motor launch. Dennis also worked in the family business until in 1933 he was accepted into the British South African Police.
Wiki tells us : When World War II broke out the South African Naval Service was virtually non-existent, with only three officers and three ratings. In January 1940 a new naval unit, called the Seaward Defence Force, was formed. Rear-Admiral Guy Hallifax CMG, who had retired in South Africa from the Royal Navy, was appointed Director of the Seaward Defence Force. This unit was to be responsible for operating minesweepers and anti-submarine ships, and undertaking other duties including inspection and signalling in South African waters. From 1941 a number of SDF antisubmarine trawlers served in the Mediterranean.
The Seaward Defence Force and the South African RNVR were consolidated on 1 August 1942 to form the South African Naval Forces (SANF).
Even in 1970 when I did my national service in the navy the Royal Navy origins of the South African Navy were still discernable. Several of our ships were hand-me-downs, renamed with South African connections. Mine, S. A. S. Simon van der Stel, had been H. M. S. Whelp and had been served on by Prince Phillip in the Far East.
Brian and Graham
My father had the good fortune to get a position with the architectural practice of Farrow and Stocks and was doing his 3rd year of studies when mobilization started. Meanwhile Graham had been fortunate in 1938 to obtain a position in the Shell Oil Company.
Both Brian and Graham volunteered to join the Kaffrarian Rifles and were evntually mobilized when 1000 men left the East London Railway Station to Hay Paddock Camp in Pietermaritzburg on 19th July 1940.
Some weeks later elder brother Jack left East London with the 6th Motor Transport Company.
With so much on Brian Watson during the War, I give him his own section, but I also have some items from the other brothers and some is common to all of them.
Graham sent his mother a 4th S. A. Infantry Brigade U. D. F. Christmas card in 1941. It depicts a springbok jumping though a “V”, the Kafferian Rifles badge and a pyramid. Inside is a photo of a typical solider in the desert with the words :
We seek the Peace for all to share
By serving in this land:
Our thoughts are with you all at home
Now Christmas is at hand.
Christmas 1941.
To this he has handwritten :
This is the KR's effort. Not so bad for the first but the verse need no have been so sing-song.
Love Graham.
An identical one came from Brian but with the following in elaborate script:
To my own dear Mother; 'D' and Dt & Alison, Lisa.
And all the other Dear Friends
That make home what it is -
A place oversure in a topsy-turvy world,
A place of which to dream, on this Christmas Day;
A place whither to return
when our job is done.
Brian
While some of their war experiences were similar, Brian was to escape from the advancing Germans in the desert, but Graham was captured. He spent some time in an Italian P.O.W. camp.
I have a message card headed POSTE ILTALIAN CARTOLINA POSTALE PER PRIGIONIERI DI GUERRA from Watson Edward Gaham, rifleman in the Campo p.g. Hut 6 , Sect I PGN82 P.M. 3200, Italia. It is addressed to Rfn. B. W. W. Watson South African Red Cross Society Middle East Mission 30 Kasi El Nil , Cairo.
It reads :
16-2-42.
Dear Brian, Many happy returns of Sunday. I only hope that you were able to spend it at home. I have great hopes o spending my next there. I read a letter from you the other day. So glad you had leave. We are very happy together here. Wicker (?)Paley (?) etc send regards. Write again soon, Yours Graham.
I have a photocopy of a message card from Italy to "Uncle Bill". This is evidently Bill Baillie who was to earn some prominence in the South African Army, but at that time was Lt. L. H. Baillie, Bill being a nickname and called Uncle by Graham as a senior family friend.
The message card is headed :
POSTE ITALIANE - CARTOLIINA POSTALE - PER PRIGIONIERI DI GUERRA post stamped both from Italy and East London as well as a Deputy Chief Field Censor stamp with a UK crown. Some printed text is in a font I cannot reproduce here, but the basics are as follows:
Mittente
(Sender's)
Cognome
(Surname) ...Watson...
Nome
(Name) ...Edward Graham...
Grado
(Rank) ...Rifleman...
Campo p.g. Hut b..P.G.N.82...
(P. of W. Camp.)
...P. M. 3200...Italia...
It is addressed to :
Lt. L. H. Baillie no 872(V) course 1231G
c/o S. A. Millitary College
Roberts Heights (East London was crossed out)
South Africa
The reverse has two spaces; one for the message and one for approval or withdrawal.
Dear Uncle Bill, 8th Dec 1942
Just to let you know that we are all O.K. and feeling very fit. Congratulations on yours and Toise's wonderful experience. Thank you very much for relieving our peoples minds by writing to them. Mother was terribly thrilled to receive your letter. I have received one letter from home so far. We are all together and expect to see you very soon. Will write again. Yours sincerely.
E. G. Watson.
Toise, I think refers to Gerard Norton, a local hero after whom Selborne'Colleges hostel is named. His nickname is usually spelt "Toys", but pronounced as Graham spells it. More on this extraordinary man is to be found here : http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbnorton.htm There is no family connection, but he was well known in East London, and being educated at Selborne College, quite possibly known by Graham, if only indirectly.
I also have a letter from Bill Baillie to my father, Brian. By this time he is a Major. It is written while he is strapped up with a leg injury. It is very evident that he can't wait to get back into action and beat the enemy. He refers to various mutual aquaintences and to "the notorious nephews" indicating a close family friendship.And signed "Bill".
