WAR "COWARD” AS HERO

Evening Star, Issue 21753, 22 June 1934, Page 12

WAR "COWARD” AS HERO

BRITISH OFFICER'S SECRET SENTENCE OF DEATH. ESCAPE AND DISTINCTION. How a British officer, who was sentenced to death for cowardice in the war, escaped and enlisted in the French army and became, in the words of Marshal Foch, “ the bravest man I have ever known,” is related by G. W. L. Day in the 1 British Legion Journal.’ Recently a war pensioner living in Paris had his pension disallowed. It had been discovered that he was an Englishman with a war, record even more remarkable than that for which he was drawing a pension. In the autumn of 1914, as a boy of nineteen, he was working in France. As soon as war broke out he hurried home to England and got a commission in a Lancashire regiment. A year later the man was out in France again in command of a platoon. Still a mere boy, he was sent into one of the hottest battles of the early part of the war. The shock was too much for him and his nerve failed. He was court-martialled and condemned to be shot for cowardice. In front of his own men he was stripped of his badges of rank and degraded. He was then placed in a hut under close arrest. ESCAPE BEFORE EXECUTION, A young Frenchwoman who had known Potter before the war heard of his plight. She managed to communicate with him, and planned for him to escape. On the night before his execution, she engaged the attention of the sentry on duty while Potter crept out of his hut. He got clear, made his way to Paris, and there passed himself off as a Frenchman. This was' not difficult, as he spoke excellent French. For some weeks Potter lay low, but his conscience began to trouble him, and be enlisted m the French Foreign Legion as a man of Alsatian origin. Nobody suspected him for a moment. Before long he was at the front again, this time with the “ Legion of the Lost ” in the inferno of Verdun. It is said that every man who took part in that desperate and long-protracted battle was a hero. But even in that legion of heroes he soon became known as a man of exceptional bravery. Whenever there was a special task calling for unusual courage, Potter was always the man to volunteer for it. He went out on dangerous patrol work, carried messages over perilous open stretches, and brought in wounded men in broad daylight. At last there came a day when a message of vital importance had to be delivered to the commander of a detached post. Ho was desperately beset, and the message was to warn him to hold on at all costs as aid would seen reach him. ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH. Half a mile of fire-swept open space bad to be crossed. It was almost certain death to attempt it. Eighteen men were killed; the nineteenth volunteer was the Englishman. Three times he was hit, and still he struggled on, until at last he reached the post and collapsed unconscious at the feet of the commander. When the Englishman recovered from his wounds he was given a commission, and rose to the rank of captain. Before the end of the war he was wounded several times, and was mentioned three times in despatches for outstanding bravery. He was finally invalided out on account of wounds received on the day before the Armistice. Marshal Foch, who decorated the English hero, described him as “ the bravest men I have ever known.” He was pensioned, and lived quietly in Paris. No one dreamed that he was an Englishman until recently, when, in some mysterious way, the story leaked out. It was then discovered that Potter had made false declarations on enlistment, and his pension was automatically disallowed. But his war record was so heroic that special allowance was made in his case, and he was granted ’ a pension on compassionate grounds.