Born on 20th April 1971 at St Pancras Hospital, London. John was schooled at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford.
He studied medicine at King’s College London. He passed his Batchelors of Medicine and Batchelor of Surgery in 2004. John worked for a time as a doctor at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, before moving to a job at the Univeristy College Hospital, London.
He went on to train as a British Army Doctor as St Bartholomews Hospital, London.
A REGULAR HERO
John became and British Army doctor and served as a Captain in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. He was deployed to Afghanistan where he served for three years in Helmand Province until August 2009, when he was wounded in action.
John’s friend and fellow Fusilier Sergeant Murray Burns wrote:
“ On Sunday 14th of August 2009 John’s world changed for him. Captain John Watson was always a hands on guys and key part of what made us a team. He got truly involved in helping to make a change over here. A real soldier.
John Loved being part of the company and on long patrols helped to keep the moral high. Being in the Army was what John loved doing and he was a natural leader and the men respected him for that. He was strong under fire and someone you want around you when things get tricky.
On the morning of the 14th, John and our squad were called upon to deploy to Sangin, Helmand province. We were sweeping streets and patrolling the town, checking buildings that were suspicious and looking for suspect environments that could hide IEDs.
Our task was to look for IEDs and within the first two hours we had found two. We safely managed to disarm them, however our presence had been observed and the locals were well aware of our deployment in the town. Later in the afternoon we were walking in a south easterly direction when I heard a large explosion from behind me. There was some confusion and we all hit the deck, and it was at that point I saw one of our troops, Corporal Hattrick, was down and badly injured with severe damage to his right leg. At that point John scrambled into action, and took over looking after Corporal Hattrick. I took point and we regrouped to secure the ground. John was busy working on Corporal Hattrick when we heard automatic fire; our company located sources quickly and sent out some covering fire. We then saw some movement and opened fire at that location, hitting a number of individuals. No more gunfire was heard after that point, and after looking back at our group to check if everyone was ok, we saw John was down and had been hit.
John’s upper right shoulder had sustained extensive damage and trauma due to the bullet that entered the front of his shoulder through the trapezius and exiting out the back through the pectoralis major. John was in a bad way and needed to be evacuated out with Corporal Hattrick.
John was a shining example to his men, all of whom admired and respected him. It’s sad to not have John around, as whenever we needed a good joke, he was your man, and often had us all in stitched (excuses the pun), but now he is recovering it will be tough on him being a survivor as through and through he was an Army man.
Sergeant Murray Burns
5th Fusilier
On deployment, Helmand Province, Afghanistan"
~ Tanscripts from ‘the John Watson Exhibition’ at SHERLOCKED (pictures x x via )
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