A medal awarded to a pilot for his daring sea rescue of a stricken comrade during World War One has sold at auction for £11,400.
Flight Lieutenant George Reid was returning from an aborted air raid in Germany when he landed his seaplane on the water to save a stranded colleague.
He was cheered on from the shore during the audacious rescue by German locals who were unaware that the men were British.
The extraordinary story emerged as the medal Flt Lt Reid received for the rescue, the Distinguished Flying Cross, was sold to a private collector.
Flt Lt Reid, from Devon, saved his colleague while making his way back through heavy snow from an aborted raid on Zeppelin sheds at the then Tondon, in northern Germany, in March 1916.
He spotted a stranded British seaplane on the water and landed next to it before taking off again with his comrade strapped to the wing as German soldiers approached.
However, Flt Lt Reid's luck ran out later when his own plane developed engine trouble as he tried to return to an aircraft carrier in the North Sea.
He was forced to land in the water again, and they were picked up after drifting for three hours.
He was held in prison camps for the remainder of the war but tried to escape several times, even breaking his leg on one occasion when he jumped from a fast-moving train.
Flt Lt Reid was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross at Buckingham Palace in 1919.
Honoured: Flt Lt Reid, pictured at Buckingham Palace, after being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1919
After the war Flt Lt Reid opened a flying school and engineering firm in Leicestershire before moving to Jersey, where he sailed his yacht and raced thoroughbred horses.
He died in 1969, aged 80.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2179715/Remembered-The-brave-British-airman-stopped-pull-comrade-sea-World-War-One.html#ixzz21x0hkZ9S
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