Group Captain PH Hugo “Dutch”

Links of Long Standing

The SAAF Development Programme’s prewar demise influenced many young South Africans including WI Deas, PG Dexter, GJ Drake, J Falkson, AC Hamman, PH Hugo, O Hume, J Ing, AG Lewis, N Lewis, LA Lynn, Spencer Peacock -Edwards, SR Whiting and GM Wright while 26-year-old Michaelhouse educated Guy Paul Wentworth Austin arrived in England on the day war was declared, commissioned as an “acting Pilot on probation” in January 1940 and lost his life 10 months later in a No 9 Squadron Wellington shot down over Germany.

Links of Long Standing

A thirteen-vote majority disallowed conscription, 44 570 of the estimated 342 700 South Africans who volunteered served in the South African Air Force17 and although a significant number of those airmen were educated at the country’s English medium schools, many Afrikaans speaking South Africans volunteered and as historian Hermann Giliomee points out, “Äfrikaners did not boycott the war as a Group” 18. General Smuts, for one, played a leading role, two notable South Africans who served in the RAF “Sailor” Malan and “Dutch” Hugo grew up in Afrikaans speaking homes, while Bultfontein High School educated Johannes Gous, a SAAF Stalag III “POW” murdered by the Gestapo, was initially turned down by the SAAF because his English was poor!

The First Ten Months

The Hawker Hurricane did not share the Fairey Battle and Blenheim’s performance and armament weaknesses but their pilots in France, including South African’s Flight Lt GDL Haysom, Flying Officer’s EJ Morris, Brian Van Mentz, PH Hugo, BP Young and Pilot Officer’s JJ le Roux and AG Lewis endured a baptism of fire against experienced Me 109 Luftwaffe pilots and intense combat conditions.

Against Unfavourable Odds

Described as a “notable” South African 15, Petrus Hendrik “Dutch” Hugo was born in the hot, dry, remote sheep farming area of Victoria West in South Africa’s Northern Cape. He studied aeronautics at the Witwatersrand Technical College, completed the “Dominion pilots-to-be” entrance examination, commissioned in early 1939 and flew Gladiators and Hurricanes in France before the “Battle of Britain”. Pilot Officer PH Hugo, The No 615 Squadron Hurricane pilot, wounded in a force landing after attacking an enemy aircraft on August 16th, incurred injuries crash landing after combat two days later which kept him off flying for a month and when he returned to operational flying, the squadron had moved to Scotland.

Against Unfavourable Odds

Twenty-four-year-old Group Captain “Dutch” Hugo pictured left was by then the recipient of a “Distinguished Service Order” and the “Distinguished Flying Cross” and two Bars and commanding the RAF’s Algiers based No 322 Wing comprising three Spitfire and one Hurricane squadron when this photograph was taken. Wing Commander “Raz” Berry (right) took over command from Hugo.

Against Unfavourable Odds

Basil Gerald Stapleton, born in Durban and educated at King Edward School in Devon, commissioned at the same time as Petrus Hendrik Hugo. He joined No 603 Squadron on July 1st, served throughout the “Battle of Britain”, accounted for six Luftwaffe aircraft and earned the “Distinguished Flying Cross”.

More than a “Few” South Africans

That “ Gazette” issue also announced the American “Distinguished Flying Cross” award to Group Captain Petrus Hendrik “Dutch” Hugo. Already the recipient of a “Distinguished Service Order”, the “Distinguished Flying Cross” and two “Bars”, his fighter pilot record, initiated by a baptism of fire in France was followed by the “Battle of Britain”, a “Distinguished Flying Cross” award, and command of No 41 Squadron in November 1941 shortly before the award of his first “Bar”.

More than a “Few” South Africans

Squadron Leader Hugo DFC and Bar acquitted himself well during the February 1942 “Channel Dash” 8. Shot down over the Channel two months later and, in his own words after the war, “A naval gunboat, returning from a patrol off the Dutch islands, had, quite fortuitously and providentially, run across me and picked me up……” 9, Hugo had established an illustrious war record by the time his “Distinguished Service Order” was announced in “The London Gazette” on May 29th, 1942 accompanied a citation that added meaning to the word “notable” and, his qualities as an inspiring leader. The second “Bar” to his “Distinguished Flying Cross” was announced on February 16th, 1943.