Watts, R F

, ,

Private Robert Frederick Watts

Family/Last name:
Watts
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Robert Frederick
Place of birth:
Long Ditton, Surrey, England
Date of birth:
5/7/1913
Nationality:
British
Service number:
1461598
Military Unit:
British Army, East Surrey Regiment, 1st Battalion (East Surrey Reg)
Rank when captured:
Private
Place of capture:
Tunisia
Date of capture:
27/11/1942
POW number:
81250
Camp
PG 66 Capua, PG 82 Laterina, Stalag VIIIA Görlitz, Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344, Stalag VIIA Moosburg
Data sources
The National Archives AustraliaOther Sources (Relative's report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner
From Rosemary Lamond (nee Watts) Daughter. 11.02.2025

Robert Frederick Watts was previously known as: Robert Wellman.

He was in 2 working Parties:

Laban (may be Luben) (28/10/43 – 10/01/44) – Labouring

Bismark Hutte (17/02/44 – 23/01/45) Labouring

I found this information recently on Ancestry Forces War Records (Index Record) when I found a document – Number 107336- marked ‘Top Secret’. I recognised my father’s handwriting on a general Questionnaire for Ex Prisoners of War.
Extra details: My father died in 1970, five days after my wedding. He had been unwell from when I was 8 years old. Scientists at Westminter Hospital,London, detected neat DDT in his mouth which had turned cancerous from the heat from his pipe. He guessed that the DDT was picked up when he was on one of the long marches whilst a prisoner of war. They had hardly any food, as did the Germans, so they ate anything they could find in the fields, such as berries. This was all I knew about his life as a prisoner of war until I found this document. He never spoke about any of this.
He was a bookbinder before and after the war but they treated him very badly towards the end of his life and gave him the sack when the cancer came back and he was attending hospital. He therefore had no pension and my mother had to manage when he died aged 57 years. All the reunions and articles about the bravery came out after he and my Mum had died. I am now 77 but I would love to have told him how proud I was of him.

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