Tony Pugsley

Tony Pugsley was born on 7 December 1901, the son of a solicitor, John Follett Pugsley, and Lucy Melton Chorley Loveband. Both his parents came from Devonshire families; his grandfather, who had qualified but never practised as a doctor, lived at Wiveliscombe, and his mother’s family were gentry originally from Yarnscombe in north-west Devon. Pugsley was descended both from Josiah Follett, the non-conformist preacher of the 18th Century, and William Pugsley who as a midshipman survived the sinking of the Royal George when she capsized at Spithead in 1782.[1]

Pugsley was educated for two terms at Blundell's School in Tiverton, the fifth successive generation of Pugsleys to go there, before joining the Navy as a cadet, aged 13, and going to the Royal Naval College Osborne and thence to the Royal Naval College Dartmouth. He joined HMS Warspite as a midshipman in time to witness the surrender of the German High-Seas Fleet to the British Grand Fleet in November 1918.

In 1931 Pugsley married Barbara Byam Shaw, the daughter of the pre-Raphaelite artist John Byam Liston Shaw (Byam Shaw) and Caroline Evelyn Eunice Pyke-Nott.

His early experiences as second-in-command of the gunboat HMS Widgeon on the river Yangtze from 1925 to 1927 are recorded in Pugsley’s memoirs, Destroyer Man. At a particularly dangerous and lawless time in Chinese history, the upper Yangtze was ruled by warlords. An uneasy peace was kept by a British naval presence, and when one of the warlords held a number of British merchant seamen hostage, Pugsley received his first opportunity to distinguish himself in aiding in their rescue. On another occasion he prevented a Chinese mob from overrunning a British cantonment by leading a guard of four sailors with unloaded rifles, he himself armed only with a service cane, towards the mob which parted and melted away[2][3]

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Pugsley, by now a commander, was captain of the destroyer HMS Javelin, and was mentioned in despatches for his ship’s defence against enemy aircraft in the Norwegian Campaign.[2][4]

Javelin was also at the Evacuation of Dunkirk, where she evacuated some 1,400 troops before being withdrawn to form part of a special anti-invasion force.[5][6]

After Dunkirk, Javelin was ordered to join Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Fifth Destroyer Flotilla at Immingham. The flotilla was a force of J- and K-class destroyers, commanded by Mountbatten from, variously, his ship HMS Kelly, and (when Kelly was under repair as she often was) the County Hotel at Immingham.[2]

As Javelin was the sole possessor in the flotilla of a radar set, Mountbatten often selected Javelin to be his temporary flotilla leader.[2] On the night of 24 November 1940, the flotilla was at sea sweeping off the South Devon and Cornish coast. Mountbatten was Captain D (as the officer commanding the flotilla), and was embarked on board Javelin. As the Daily Telegraph put it, "whatever Mountbatten’s attributes in other fields, at sea he was regarded by Pugsley and others as an accident-prone Jonah".[6] This view was backed by much circumstantial evidence. The Kelly, Mountbatten’s famous ship, had an astonishing number of misfortunes under his command, not all of them through enemy action. Pugsley in his memoirs remarks that Mountbatten was otherwise an administrator of brilliant efficiency, and above all a man of great and sincere charm.[2]

In a disastrous night-encounter with three German destroyers, Mountbatten over-ruled Pugsley’s advice which was typically forthright. When the destroyers were sighted, Pugsley said to Mountbatten "Straight on at ‘em, I presume, sir?". Mountbatten replied "No, no. We must turn [to port] to a parallel course at once or they will get away from us".[7] Mountbatten wanted to ensure that the German destroyers, which had several knots extra at their disposal, did not escape. He accordingly wished to turn the British flotilla to a course that would not allow them to get away. Pugsley was keen to get into action and bring his forward guns to bear as quickly as possible, in order to smother the enemy. With ranges almost point-blank, the first few salvoes could have been decisive.[2] The turn to port ordered by Mountbatten was disastrous, offering the Germans a ready target. Javelin was hit by two German torpedoes as she came onto a course parallel to that of the Germans’. Of the original 353 feet of Javelin, only 155 feet remained.[8] Three officers (Surgeon-Lieutenant Sloan RNVR, Sub-Lieutenant Mitchell, and Midshipman Fitzgerald) and forty-three sailors (including Pugsley’s steward, Leading Steward Little whose loss Pugsley felt deeply) were killed.[9]

The German flotilla made good its escape.[8] Javelin meanwhile was towed by tug over the course of the next 36 hours to Plymouth.[2] Pugsley was again mentioned in dispatches.[10]

Javelin being under heavy reconstruction, Pugsley shortly afterwards took command of HMS Fearless, at Troon, within a flotilla commanded by Captain Guy Grantham, and proceeded to Gibraltar on convoy duty.[2] At Gibraltar, Fearless was ordered to join Force H, under Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, responsible for the Western half of the Mediterranean. Over the next few months HMS Fearless was in the Mediterranean, involved in convoy duties to re-supply Malta and the bombardment of Genoa, trying to avoid the Italian air-force’s (and on occasion the Luftwaffe’s) attentions. In June 1941 Fearless shared the credit for the sinking of U138.[11] Fearless was sunk by aircraft attack on 23 July 1941 during Operation Substance.[2] Pugsley, again mentioned in dispatches, returned home, and, in October 1941, was appointed to command HMS Paladin, a brand-new destroyer being built by John Brown & Company at their shipyard on the River Clyde. Paladin sailed on 7 December 1941, and Pugsley took her on her first deployment, escort duty to Ceylon.[2] In April 1942, while in the Indian Ocean, Paladin rescued the captain, officers and ship's company of HMS Dorsetshire,[2] and was involved in Operation Ironclad, the capture of Diego Suarez, Madagascar, from Vichy French forces (earning Paladin her first battle honours). Paladin then returned to the Mediterranean, via India and Mauritius, and joined Rear-Admiral Philip Vian’s force of some eight cruisers and twenty-six destroyers (plus the old battleship HMS Centurion, now a radio-controlled target-ship), in order to force passage through the infamous "bomb alley", the term given to the westward route from Alexandria to Malta. The attempt (known as Operation Vigorous) failed, in the face of determined and sustained attack by the Luftwaffe and Italian air-force, and Vian’s force retired to Alexandria with a number of ships sunk or put out of action. The relief of Malta by the British was as a result thwarted until after El Alamein. Pugsley was awarded the DSO for his exploits while in command of Paladin.[12]

On New Year’s Eve 1942, Pugsley was promoted to captain, and to command of the 14th Destroyer Flotilla in HMS Jervis. He subsequently was appointed to command all the fleet destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean. Throughout the early part of 1943, his flotilla harried Axis shipping and engaged Italian naval surface ships.[2] Following the highly successful destruction of an Axis convoy off Sicily, he was awarded a Bar to his DSO and the Greek War Cross.[13][14][15]

In mid-July 1943, after four years almost continuously at sea, Pugsley was recalled to join the Combined Operations planning for D-Day at Cowes under Commodore John Hughes-Hallett. Pugsley was appointed to command one of the assault groups.[2] Each landing force (there were originally three, two British and one American, although this was later increased to three British and two American) had a commodore or rear-admiral as naval commander and was subdivided into three assault groups each with a captain in command. Pugsley was given the frigate HMS Lawford as his headquarters ship for assault group J1, responsible for the landing operations of the 3rd Canadian Division at Juno Beach.[16] Lawford was sunk by enemy aircraft in the early stages of the landings.[17] The landings completed, Pugsley was awarded a second Bar to his DSO.[18] and was appointed deputy to Admiral Vian in the British landing areas in the Channel as Captain (Patrols).[19]

After Vian's departure, Pugsley was promoted to the command of all British naval patrols in the Channel, responsible for preventing the enemy disrupting the Allied build-up.[2]

In mid-September 1944, Pugsley was given a new appointment, involving finding a solution to dislodge the Germans from the island of Walcheren. The role quickly became one of planning and commanding an amphibious operation to clear the island.[2]

Force T continued in existence until the end of the War, undertaking smaller operations and providing the seaward defence for the Allied armies operating in the Netherlands and Germany. More notable actions in which Force T was involved included the important transfer of the First Canadian Army across the Rhine into Germany in 1945, and launching numerous minor naval and amphibious commando raids against enemy units and strongpoints along the Dutch and East German coastlines. Force T was disbanded in May 1945.[28]

In July 1945 Pugsley was appointed to command the 19th Destroyer Flotilla in HMS Trafalgar, but the War against Japan ended before the Flotilla reached the theatre of operations.[2] Pugsley continued in command of the 19th Destroyer Flotilla for the year following the surrender of Japan. Following an appointment on the directing staff of the Senior Officers' War Course at Greenwich, he was appointed to command of HMS Sea Eagle and became the Director of the Joint Anti-Submarine School, and then commanded the light aircraft carrier HMS Warrior. He was promoted Rear-Admiral in 1951 and was Flag-Officer Malayan Area during the Malayan Emergency, responsible for naval support to the military operations and acting as naval adviser to General Sir Gerald Templer. Pugsley retired in 1954.

The Daily Telegraph obituary of 23 July 1990 described Pugsley as having "an insatiable appetite for battle and impressive stamina; after a night on the bridge he would return to harbour, have a few gins and some lunch, and then summon his staff to discuss flotilla affairs. Pugsley played as hard as he fought – as one of his officers put it, "you had to have your drinking boots on to go ashore with the Captain" – and was forever smoking or sucking a small pipe".[29]