Veteran Harry Shindler, who survived the Battle of Anzio and helped liberate Rome during World War II, has been appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list.
Shindler was in the news last year for digging into government records and discovering details about the death of Eric Fletcher Waters, the father of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who died at Anzio when the younger Waters was an infant. (See “New documents reveal final day of Roger Water’s father“)
The battle was described in Roger’s “When the Tigers Broke Free,” an outtake from Floyd’s “The Wall” album, later to become part of “The Final Cut” when that album was reissued in 2004.
Shindler received the honor for helping find graves of British soldiers killed or listed as missing in action.
He moved to Italy in the 1980s and has campaigned for years to restore the voting rights of UK citizens living abroad.
What a poignant story, where one man can help another; both wounded by war in different ways.
Shindler was the man that Roger Waters needed, at this time in history; to help bring some closure and salve some old wounds. It is sad that war brought them together but metaphysical that they needed each other because of it, and after almost 70 years.