The Pughs and the Calcutta Light Horse

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My grandfather, Lt Col Archie Pugh CBE, VD

 The Pugh family had a long connection with the Calcutta Light Horse, the volunteer regiment stationed in Calcutta.  My grandfather Archie Pugh, a solicitor, joined them in 1880. He served as Colonel of the Company from 1912 until 1922 when he died. We have a lovely silver tray engraved with his name and dates of service given by his fellow officers. A book, 'Merchant Prince' by Sir Owain Jenkins, published in 1987, paints a fascinating picture of the types of people who served in the Calcutta Light Horse it and the lives they led. 

The inscription on the silver tray given to Col Archie Pugh in 1922




Maj Lewis Pugh in 1943. 'A fire-eating Horse Artilleryman of deceptively demure appearance''
And in 1943, my cousin Lewis Pugh, who was a regular soldier serving with Special Services in India, commanded a secret raid on German ships using members of the company. The raid was described in a book by James Leasor 'The Boarding Party' (1978) and summarised in the following terms:

'Shipping losses from German submarines in the Indian Ocean were threatening to cut off essential supplies of munitions for the defence of India against Japan.Intelligence had identified a network of informers from Shipping Offices in Bombay, organised by a German spy know as 'Trompeta' resident in neutral Portuguese territory in Goa. A transmitter in the German merchantman, the 'Eherenfels', interred in Mormugoa Harbour, passed the time of each sailing to the German U-Boats. Few ships using the port of Bombay escaped them.

Two officers of Special Services - Lewis Pugh - a fire-eating Horse Artilleryman of deceptively demure appearance - and Gavin Stewart, a big, rough man from the well-known tube-making company Stewarts and Lloyds, entered Goa on some pretext as disguised civilians, kidnapped 'Trompeta' and removed him from British India.

A fuller description of this action is now set out here, based largely on the later work of military historian Col David Miller and published in 2015 as 'Special Operations South - East Asia 1942 - 1945' 





  

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