Pink Floyd Founder Visits Father's WWII Grave

By Nick Pisa, Sky News Reporter

Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters has made an emotional journey to Italy to visit the World War Two battlefield where his father was killed.

The 69-year-old singer and bass player travelled to Cassino, south-east of Rome, where his father Eric Fletcher Waters died while serving as a second lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers.

He was among thousands of Allied troops who landed at Anzio in 1944 as they made the advance into Nazi-occupied Europe, but he was killed in the first wave that attempted to secure the beach head.

Waters was mobbed by dozens of fans as he arrived at the site of the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Cassino, which was a German stronghold during the war.

Headstones at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Cassino, Italy

He was just five months old when his father died, and although his name is on a memorial at the cemetery his father's remains were never found.

Eric Waters' death provided the inspiration for several songs and it is commemorated in particular with When The Tigers Broke Free, which also appeared in the film The Wall.

In the song Waters describes how he feels that his 31-year-old father died in February 1944 because of foolhardy generals.

He also describes coming across a letter of condolence from George V as he tried on his father's uniform, adding how he found it disturbing that it was rubber-stamped and not actually signed.

Eric Fletcher Waters was killed in 1944 at Anzio

After visiting the cemetery at Cassino, Waters told a local Italian TV station: "I'm on a journey through Europe, my grandfather was killed in 1916 and my father was killed down the road in Anzio. This is the end of my journey.

"Some of my past is in my music and so is my future. I'm making a film that won't be aired in public."

Speaking of his father, Waters recalled in an interview his childhood and how his father's death had affected him.

He said: "When men in uniform came to collect their children, that's when I realised I didn't have a father anymore.

"I was very angry. It took me years to come to terms with it. Because he was missing in action, presumed killed, until quite recently I expected him to come home.

"The sacrifice of his life has been a great gift and a great burden to me."

The film and album The Wall tells the story of how a troubled rock star called Pink, who is said to be Waters, is left psychologically scarred by the loss of his father in the war.

The film opens with scenes of a solider - Eric Waters - along with his comrades, storming a beachhead.

As he left the cemetery the musician was presented with a scarf from the local Cassino football club.

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