Sir Tasker Watkins made a unique contribution to the administration of justice as the first Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, 1983-91. A lord Justice of Appeal from 1980 to 1993, he was also Deputy Chief Justice of England, 1988-93.

Yet the distinction for which he will perhaps be best remembered was one he gained before his legal career had even begun. This was the award of the Victoria Cross for his outstanding bravery and leadership during the campaign in Normandy in summer 1944.

He won the decoration for two actions in one evening during the Battle of the Falaise Gap in August 1944. Both demonstrated his total contempt for danger, as well as tactical leadership of the highest order. It was his first encounter with an enemy fighting to contain the Allies’ Normandy landing within the beachhead, before a concentration of armour intended to destroy it.

The break-out southwards by the British 2nd Army began on July 18 with the gap between Falaise and Argentan as a key objective. This was to prevent the enemy using that route for reinforcement, once he realised that an Allied landing in the Pas de Calais area was no longer a threat. By August 12 the enemy had begun to pull back from around Mortain, but were fighting stubbornly and skilfully to stand their ground in the Falaise-Argentan pocket.

On August 18, 1/5th Battalion of The Welch Regiment was ordered to seize a series of local objectives along the railway at Bafour, near Falaise. It was still an hour until dusk as they crossed the start line, and German Spandau machineguns, sited beyond the standing corn, were soon inflicting casualties. The advance was held up when a German 88mm gun engaged the infantry’s supporting tank squadron.

As the only unwounded officer left in his company, Lieutenant Watkins took command and, with only short-range fire support, led charges on two of the enemy posts in succession, personally killing the occupants with short bursts of his Sten sub-machine-gun. On reaching the second objective, he found a German soldier manning an antitank gun but his Sten jammed when he tried to shoot him. Swiftly throwing the weapon in the man’s face, he drew his revolver and killed him before he could recover from the shock.

Having captured his objective, Watkins found he had only 30 men with him when the enemy counter-attacked with a scratch force of 50 infantry. He directed the fire of his men against the enemy and, as soon as they faltered, led a bayonet charge from which only a handful of the enemy escaped. Unknown to him, because the company radio had been damaged during the action, the battalion was at that moment ordered to withdraw.

Initially, Watkins prepared to hold his hard-won position but, as darkness fell, it became clear that his remnant of the company were alone and in danger of being surrounded. He therefore decided to rejoin his battalion by passing round the enemy’s flank. But while making their way back through the cornfields he and his men were challenged by an enemy post a few yards distant.

Shouting to his men to scatter, he charged the post alone with a Bren light machinegun and killed the occupants. He then led his remaining soldiers back to battalion headquarters. The following day the enemy pulled his tanks out of the Falaise pocket, leaving only infantry to cover their withdrawal.

Watkins was confirmed in command of his company and promoted captain. On September 22 he was appointed acting major. Perhaps not surprisingly in view of his aggressive attitude, he was wounded in action in the Netherlands on October 27 and evacuated to England. He received the Victoria Cross from King George VI on March 8, 1945, and was released from active military service on May 28 the following year.

Tasker Watkins, the son of a mining engineer, was born in Nelson, Glamorgan, in 1918. He never lost his allegiance to South Wales, which was his principal home throughout his life. After early years at Pontypridd County School, he spent a brief period with his family in Essex before the Second World War and was studying to become a commercial attaché when he enlisted on the outbreak of war.

After the war Watkins decided to read for the Bar and he was called in 1948 at the Middle Temple, the Inn of which he became a bencher in 1970. As a junior in Cardiff chambers, he built up a large and varied practice in both civil and criminal work, and he proved to be an outstanding jury advocate, with a quiet, concise, probing style that never failed to hold the attention of judge and jury alike.

He was also much in demand as a witty after-dinner speaker, a burden that he bore cheerfully for the rest of his life. On taking silk in 1965, he moved to his London chambers and his command as an advocate heightened: his preeminence was recognised by his election as leader of his circuit in 1970.

Although his period as a silk lasted only six years, until his appointment to the High Court bench, he was involved in many notable cases and his advocacy as Counsel for the tribunal in the Aberfan Inquiry is specially remembered. He was also during this period successively Recorder of Merthyr Tydfil and Swansea.

On this appointment to the Bench in 1971, Watkins was assigned to the newly created Family Division, but he was transferred to the Queen’s Bench Division three years later, and it was there that he was able to deploy his talents to the full. As a trial judge, he was firm and direct but always courteous and sensitive to the needs of a jury. Although he was not regarded as a profound lawyer, he had a sound grasp of principle and excellent judgment, as well as judicial temperament.

He was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1980, after a period of over five years as a presiding judge of the Wales and Chester Circuit, and at the moment when Lord Lane became Lord Chief Justice. Lord Lane saw at once the imperative need to delegate some of the increasing burdens of his office, in particular, the day-to-day supervision of circuit judicial administration and judicial training, and he found in Watkins a judge who was ideally fitted by temperament and experience to take on that work.

From 1980 onwards, Watkins shouldered a heavy burden of administrative work in addition to his judicial duties as an appellate judge and he became deeply involved in every aspect of judicial administration and planning on all six circuits. In doing so, he worked in full harmony with the Lord Chief Justice, a close friend with whom he was temperamentally attuned, and his role was formally recognised by his appointment in 1983 as the Senior Presiding Judge, an office that he had held until his retirement in 1993. From 1988 he was also Deputy Chief Justice of England.

Above all, Watkins was a warm, companionable man. He will be specially missed in Wales, where he played an active part in many spheres, including the university of which he was an honorary doctor of laws. He was prominent in the work of the British Legion as president for Wales for many years and as national vice-president, and the Territorial Army Association.

Another great love was rugby football. He was widely known and respected at all levels in the game. He guided the affairs of Glamorgan Wanderers throughout the postwar years, latterly as their president, and was, from its inception, chairman of the trustees of the Welsh Rugby Union charitable Trust, formed to assist injured players. He was president of the Welsh Rugby Union from 1993, and on the day of his death, in recognition of his passionate involvement with the game, the Welsh national side wore black arm-bands for their World Cup opening match against Canada in Nantes.

Watkins’s death leaves only 11 surviving holders of the VC, eight of whom won their awards during the Second World War and four in subsequent campaigns, including Private Johnson Beharry, who won his VC in Iraq in 2004 Watkins married his wife, Eirwen, in 1941. She survives him with their daughter. Their son died in 1982.

Sir Tasker Watkins, VC, GBE, PC, a Lord Justice of Appeal, 1980-93, was born on November 18, 1918. He died on September 9, 2007, aged 88