Fred Potts

He dragged his wounded comrade back through Turkish gunfire.

Frederick William Owen Potts was born in Reading on 18 December 1892. An engineering fitter and evening student, he joined the Berkshire Yeomanry before the First World War. His regiment went to Gallipoli as dismounted troops in August 1915.

Wounded during the attack on Scimitar Hill on 21 August, Potts refused to leave the severely injured Arthur Andrews. He remained with him for more than two days, then used a shovel as an improvised sledge to pull him roughly 600 yards to safety under fire. He received the Victoria Cross.

His injury prevented a return to active service. He married Ruth Wellstead in December 1915 and later worked as a master tailor in Reading. He served again in the Territorial artillery from 1920 to 1923. During the Second World War he became a Home Guard lieutenant. Potts died in Reading on 3 November 1943; Andrews attended his funeral.

Victoria Cross citation

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to a wounded comrade in the Gallipoli Peninsula. Although himself severely wounded in the thigh in the attack on “Hill 70” on 21st August, 1915, he remained out over 48 hours under the Turkish trenches with a private of his Regiment who was severely wounded and unable to move, although he could himself have returned to safety. Finally he fixed a shovel to the equipment of his wounded comrade, and, using this as a sledge, he dragged him back over 600 yards to our lines, though fired at by the Turks on the way. He reached our trenches at about 9.30 p.m. on 23rd August.