The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (416998) Warrant Officer John Halstead Pugh, No. 175 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Charis May, the story for this day was on (416998) Warrant Officer John Halstead Pugh, No. 175 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

416998 Warrant Officer John Halstead Pugh, No. 175 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 5 June 1944
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 12 December 2014

Today we pay tribute to Warrant Officer John Halstead Pugh, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1944.

Born on 4 October 1919 in Murray Bridge, South Australia, John Halstead Pugh was the son of Angelo and Millicent Pugh.

Before the outbreak of the Second World War Pugh worked as a bank clerk, and served for several months with the Militia before his enlistment in the Royal Australian Air Force in November 1941.

He began training as a pilot, and in January 1943 embarked for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was one of almost 16,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who, throughout the course of the war, joined Royal Air Force squadrons.

Arriving in Britain in May 1943, Pugh undertook further specialist training before being posted to No. 175 Squadron, Royal Air Force, in late May 1944. No. 175 was a ground-attack squadron equipped with the rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon.

Pugh had been with the squadron for only a matter of days when, while on an operation attacking targets near Cherbourg in support of the imminent Allied landings in Normandy, he encountered engine trouble. With his engine having cut out he was forced to bail out into the ocean 15 miles north of Cherbourg. Other Typhoons of the squadron circled the crash scene, but all they could see was Pugh’s parachute floating on the water. There was no sign of Pugh. He was 24 years old.

Pugh’s body was not recovered and his name is listed and commemorated upon the Air Forces Memorial overlooking the River Thames. The Runnymede memorial lists all British and Commonwealth with no known grave.

In a letter to Pugh’s father, the Squadron Leader of No. 175 Squadron wrote that although Pugh had only recently joined the squadron he had already proven to be an excellent pilot, always at the ready to take part in operation work. Pugh, he wrote, had “carried out his duties very courageously and successfully”. He was to be greatly missed.

Pugh was one of thousands of Australians who served with the British and Commonwealth forces throughout the build-up toward and during the Normandy campaign.
His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 Australians who died in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Warrant Officer John Halstead Pugh, and all of those Australians – as well as our Allies and brothers in arms – who gave their lives in the hope for a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section