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Pte. George Douglas Watson
British Army 9th Btn. Royal Irish Rifles
from:13 Ruvigny Gardens, Putney, London
I just found the military service history of my late granddad, George Watson. At age 18, he joined the British Army and served with the 9th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, and the 17th London Regiment, with which he fought in the Great War. He returned to civilian life in 1920, but on 22 May 1928, at age 31, he died of shell shock from his terrible experiences in that war. He is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, Wandsworth, London. I feel I need to add to Granddad George's tragic life story.
He was the love of my late nan’s life, and all that I knew of him was what she told me. She said he was a real cheeky, funny lad when they were courting, but at the age of 18 he felt he had to join the army to fight in the Great War. When he returned in 1920, he was a shadow of himself and suffering from shell shock. She told me he used to wake up screaming at night with cold sweats because of the horrors he witnessed at the front, and that in the end it became so unbearable with all the pain and sorrow, it eventually made him take his own young life, 7 years later, by drinking arsenic down in the coal cellar. She said that he screamed in agony for well over 3 hours until the poison finally killed him. My nan was pregnant at the time with my father. How horrific that must had been for her, no one could ever imagine.
In those days, men with psychiatric problems from the war were told to man up, but we now know they were suffering from PTSD and so many took their own lives when they returned from the front. A lot of them felt guilty because they survived and their closest friends were killed in battle. So, on this Remembrance Sunday and on the 11th, I shall be thinking not only of my great-uncle James but my granddad George as well (my nan's brother and the husband she lost to the war) for the sacrifices that they made for this country in the First World War. God bless their souls.
