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My uncle “Jack” — Cyril John Watts, was born in 1913 at Church Farm Lodge, Cockayne Hatley,Nr. Wrestlingworth Sandy, Bedfordshire. He was the youngest son of John and Lillian Watts, and like, many other young boys, he had only one ambition — to become a soldier. This he achieved in 1930, when aged almost seventeen, he — like many others, “modified” his age slightly, in order to sign up. He joined the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, and for the next seven years served mainly in Jhansi and Dacca, India.
After a short break in the Army Reserves , he re-joined in May 1938 with the Worcester Regiment, and served in Palestine during early 1939, gaining the promotion to Sergeant.
During early 1943, the opportunity arose to train as a parachutist, consequently he joined the Anglian Air Corps 8th batt., and saw action in the D-Day Normandy landings.
Sadly, Jack was killed in action, on 24th March 1945, during the final airborne assaults over the Rhine at Wesel, Germany. He was 32 years old, leaving a wife Doris (Nee’ Andrews from Worcester) and young son John. He is buried at the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleeve, Nordrhein-West Falen, Germany Ref: 37.E.1 and also commemorated on the War Memorial at Wrestlingworth, Bedfordshire; the village where he spent all those happy boyhood days, playing soldiers.

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