Berkshire and The War: the "Reading Standard" pictorial record. Volume 1. pg185

Lynda Chater. Edited 5th October 2015

BERKSHIRE YEOMANRY continued.

FIRST YEOMAN TO GAIN V. C.

Two nights after the charge of the Berkshire Yeomanry two
men, wearied and famished, were making a strange descent of
the hillside. One was sitting on an entrenching shovel and his
companion was tugging desperately at the improvised sledge.
For three hours they crept down the slopes until they
reached their goal, the British lines, and their path was barred
by a bayonet that gleamed in the cold light of the moon.
What's up? asked the puzzled sentry. I've got a chap
wounded, was the answer, and I've dragged him down the
hill on a shovel. Can you give me a hand?
The speaker was Trooper Frederick William Owen Potts
and his passenger was his friend Trooper Arthur Wilfred
Andrews, the rescue of whom resulted in the award of the
Victoria Cross to Trooper Potts, the first Yeoman to receive the
most prized decoration in the Army. Here is the brief official
account of a deed which thrilled the country:

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 August 21st, 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, although fired at by the Turks on the way. He reached our
trenches at about 9.30p.m. on August 23rd.

How manfully these two men fought with the sufferings of
thirst, hunger and wounds, to say nothing of parching heat
by day and freezing cold by night! In desperation they picked
bits off the stalks of the shrubs and tried to suck them; when
they did find water it was the contents of dead comrades water
bottles. At times bullets sang over their heads, and though
they managed to wriggle a little distance they dared not show
their faces. When the third night came every movement was a
misery, but the unlucky pair resolved to risk everything on an
attempt to reach safety. After crawling a few yards Andrews
had to give up, and then the discovery of the entrenching tool
revealed a way out. When we began to move, Potts says,
the Turks opened fire on us, but I hardly cared now about the
risk of being shot, and for the first time since I had been
wounded I stood up and dragged desperately at the shovel with
Andrews on it. I never lost heart during all the time that I
was lying on Hill 70. Many old things came clearly up in my
mind and many an old prayer was uttered. 

Tpr. F. W. 0. POTTS, V. C. outside his parents house, 54, Edgehill Street, Reading. Besides his parents the picture shows his
sisters and his brother-in-law.

The second portrait is of Tpr. ARTHUR WILFRED ANDREWS,
12a, WestStreet, Reading, who was so severely wounded that he
could not move, and after 48 hours' exposure reached the British
lines owing to the unselfish aid of Tpr. Potts.