Herbert Cecil Pugh
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Herbert Cecil Pugh, GC (2 November 1898 - 5 July 1941) was a South African recipient of the George Cross, and the only clergyman to be so awarded. He was a chaplain in the Royal Air Force holding the rank of Squadron Leader.
[edit] Biography
Pugh was born in 1898 in Johannesburg and attended Jeppe High School for Boys. During the First World War between 1917-1919 he was a medical orderly in France with the South African Field Ambulance. Because of his experiences in the war, he later became a minister. After the war he attended Oxford University in England between 1920 and 1924. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 he volunteered to become a padre in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In 1941 he was on the SS Anselm when it was torpedoed. Giving up his life jacket to someone else, he had himself lowered into a hold where men were trapped, certain to die, and comforted them.
[edit] Citation
George Cross citation:
The Reverend H. C. Pugh, after seeing service in this country, was posted to Takoradi and embarked on H.M.T. Anslem, carrying over 1,300 passengers; for West Africa at the end of June, 1941. She was torpedoed in the Atlantic in the early hours of the 5th July, 1941. One torpedo hit a hold on Deck C, destroying the normal means of escape. Mr. Pugh came up on deck in a dressing gown and gave all the help he could. He seemed to be everywhere at once, doing his best to comfort the injured, helping with the boats and rafts (two of these were rendered unserviceable as a result of the explosion) and visiting the different lower sections where men were quartered.
When he learned that a number of injured airmen were trapped in the damaged hold, he insisted on being lowered into it with a rope. Everyone demurred because the hold was below the water line and already the decks were awash and to go down was to go to certain death. He simply explained that he must be where his men were. The deck level was already caving in and the hold was three parts full of water so that, when he knelt to pray, the water reached his shoulders. Within a few minutes the ship plunged and sank and Mr. Pugh was never seen again. He had every opportunity of saving his own life but, without regard for his own safety and in the best tradition of the Service and of a Christian minister, he gave up his life for others."
