POUNTNEY, John Thomas

Thomas Pountney lived at 10 Halfway, Kingswinford, and worked at Jones and Attwood, the iron founders at Amblecote. He volunteered for the Royal Navy and was sent to the Portsmouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division. They had been in the original Gallipoli invasion in April 1915 and had suffered heavily since that time. John Pountney was in a draft arriving in September and joining the front line near Helles. In November it was decided to withdraw all forces from the peninsula but an evacuation was always difficult to manage. In this case it would be within sight of the enemy and a great risk. In practice it was almost miraculously successful. On the 27th December, however, the Turks opened a systematic bombardment of the trenches occupied by the Marine Division and the outcome was casualties. Private John Poutney was among those killed in action, just before the evacuation. He was 19 years of age and is commemorated on the Helles and Kingswinford Memorials.