Ronald Godfrey Potts

Ronald Godfrey Potts was interviewed by David Lampe for "The Last Ditch". He was born the fourth son of a Birmingham psychiatrist and became a manager at a factory in Witham before the war.

He reported that they had been told that their transmissions could not have been located by the Germans, though this was untrue.

Unusually, he was member of an Operational Patrol as well as an Special Duties operator. He was asked to suggest people to be his spies and runners, which was not always the case elsewhere.

The surviving diaries of Group Commander Keith Seabrook, show that Potts was his (Operational) Assistant Group Commander by 1944, though previously he had commanded the Wickham Bishops Patrol. These carry detailed stores records, including that he was 5'10", and had size 11 shoes. He had joined the Home Guard on the 14th May 1940 having previously been in the Officer Training Corps as a student. He went to Coleshill for his training course on 6th September 1940. His Identity card was M101982, carrying a military code common to Home Guard officers rather than the more normal geographical one. Many members of the central Essex Auxiliary Units Patrols were, like Ronald Potts, involved in the local fruit growing industry one way or another.

Ronald Potts appears to have been a very busy man. He captained the local Witham Hockey Club and played cricket in the summer. He was Master of Ceremonies at the annual socials for both firm and hockey club during the war and appeared in various pantomimes, normally raising money for Prisoner of War funds or other such good causes. He also had a car, a 1938 Standard 12HP (EDE391), run on a C licence, so may have been able to drive to visit some of his contacts.

In April 1944, he left Auxiliary Units to join the Royal Marines. Three years later he was engaged to the daughter of a naval Commander and subsequently married. He died in 1972