"When the Tigers Broke Free" is a Pink Floyd song by Roger Waters, describing the death of his father, Eric Fletcher Waters, in the Battle of Anzio (codenamed Operation Shingle) during the Italian Campaign of the Second World War.

The song was written at the same time as The Wall, hence its copyright date of 1979, and was originally intended to be part of that album, but was rejected by the other members of the band on the grounds that it was too personal. It was subsequently recorded and included in the movie version of The Wall and first released as a separate track on a 7" single on 26 July 1982 (running 2:55), before appearing in The Wall film. The 7" was labelled "Taken from the album The Final Cut" but was not included on that album until the 2004 CD reissue.

The song sets up the story premise for The Wall movie, set over footage recreating the British contribution to Operation Shingle, the Anzio Campaign, where American and British troops of the U.S. VI Corps landed on the beaches near Anzio, Italy, with the goal of liberating Rome from German control. These forces included Z Company of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), in which Waters' father Eric served. The battalion was serving alongside the 9th Royal Fusiliers and the 7th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, under command of the 167th (London) Infantry Brigade, of the 56th (London) Infantry Division. As Waters tells it, the forward commander had asked to withdraw his forces from a German Tiger tank assault, but the generals refused, and "the generals gave thanks / As the other ranks / Held back the enemy tanks for a while" and "the Anzio bridgehead was held for the price / Of a few hundred ordinary lives" as the Tigers eventually broke through the British defence, killing all of Company Z, including Eric Waters.

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