Son of Harry Walter and Jean Pugh; husband of Amy Lilian Pugh, of Bridgnorth, Shropshire. M.A. (Oxon.). 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). On Jeppe High School for Boys Roll of Honour
LG 1 April 1947 - "The Revd. H. C. Pugh was on board H. M. T. Anslem, bound for West Africa, when the ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic in the early hours of 5th July, 1941. Coming up on deck he seemed to be everywhere at once, doing his best to comfort the injured, helping with the boats, rafts, and visiting different lower sections where men were quartered, When he learned that a number of injured airmen were trapped in the hold which had been damaged by the torpedo, which destroyed the normal means of escape, he insisted on being lowered in by a rope. Everyone demurred, as the hold was below the water-line, the decks were already awash, and to go down was to go to certain death. He simply explained that he must be where his men were. The hold now was so full of water 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."