WW2 100 – 6 November 1942 – ‘In loving memory of a dear husband’: Sapper Arthur Stanley Pengilley (1914-42), 244 Field Company, Royal Engineers
Continued from 24 October 1942 - ‘Sadly missed by his sorrowing wife’:
PRIVATE
CHARLES WILLIAM HOLMES (1910-42)
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-24-october-1942-sadly-missed-by.html
Budleigh Salterton War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting
Hill
It’s no surprise to
find Arthur Stanley Pengilley remembered on Budleigh War Memorial. His family
name is well known in the area, though it can be confusing to see the spelling
variations. I counted nine Pengilleys and eight Pengillys in the parish record
of burials.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), Arthur’s parents were Charles Pengilley and his wife Ellen. Investigating further, I found that Ellen had local connections through her maiden name of Bickley. Her father was Charles Bickley, from another well known local family. In the 1891 Census he is listed as a labourer living at Kersbrook Cottages. His wife’s name is given as Mercy Sarah W. Bickley née Hitchcock.
Coastguard Cottages
Photo courtesy of Roger Hodge
I also discovered from
parish records that the parents – named as Arthur Charles Pengilley and Ellen
Augusta Pengilly are buried in the same
grave at St Peter’s Burial Ground. Arthur Charles Pengilley died in 1931, aged
58, and his address is given as 15, Perriam’s Place in Budleigh Salterton. Arthur
Stanley Pengilley’s address at the time of his death was ‘Hillside’, Chapel
Street, just round the corner from his parents. When his mother died in 1955,
aged 82, she was living at 6, Coastguard Cottages, in Budleigh.
Arthur Stanley Pengilley’s grave is in St Peter’s Burial Ground, where you can read that very touching inscription ‘In loving memory of my dear husband’ on the headstone – requested by his widow. She was Dorothy Sophia Pengilley, née Hinnem, and they were married in 1940. According to the CWGC, she came from Broadclyst, near Exeter; records show that she died in 1982, in Gwent, Wales, aged 76.
Arthur's is one of the 20 military graves in the Burial Ground. Although the headstone bears a military GR insignia, it is a non-standard type, inscribed also with the name of Arthur Stanley’s elder brother, Ernest Albert Pengilley. He died in 1973, apparently aged 73, and is buried in the same grave.
According to genealogy sites Arthur Charles and
Ellen Augusta Pengilly had five children, Arthur Stanley being the youngest. It’s
good to know that some of them are still remembered today. Ernest Albert,
apparently known as ‘Earn’ and also by the nickname of ‘Snowball’ was a
fisherman who used to fish with the Mears brothers, from another noted Budleigh fishing family. Local people remember the crab
pots which filled his garden at Coastguard Cottages, and also his sisters Edith
Florence and Ethel Louisa. They died in 1988 and 1993 respectively, aged 90 and
84, and lie in the same grave at St Peter’s Burial Ground.
I hope that all those family details are
correct. I’ve listed them in the hope that people’s memories might be jogged
sufficiently to tell us how Arthur Stanley Pengilley died at the shockingly young
age of 28. It would be good to improve this profile of him with more
information about his boyhood in Budleigh, perhaps some photos, and certainly
an explanation as to the cause of his death.
A defused, German 1,000 kg 'Luftmine' (parachute mine) in Glasgow, 18 March 1941. Image credit: Lieutenant W.T. Lockeyear, War Office official photographer. Photograph H 8281 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
The fact that he is buried in Budleigh Salterton would indicate that he died in the UK. Could it be that the cause was an accident, given the nature of his wartime work? Sappers’ work was frequently dangerous, the obvious example being bomb disposal. However the headstone's inscription telling us that he 'passed away' could indicate that he died from natural causes.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists him as a member of 244 Field Company, The Royal Engineers, with the Service Number 2113543. Field Companies like the one in which Arthur served were the standard unit of the Royal Engineers within any infantry division during WW2. Each infantry division was served by three Royal Engineers field companies which provided the pool of trained engineers (or sappers) to undertake tasks as directed.
Each field company was commanded by a Major, with a Captain as his second-in-command, and comprised three platoons, each with a dozen sappers, one of whom was a corporal or lance sergeant in charge. The 244th Field Company to which Arthur belonged was a first-line Territorial Army company, based at Swansea, and was part of the 53rd (Welsh) Division, a Territorial unit which first saw service during WW1.
The 53rd Division served as part of the Home Defence Forces of the United Kingdom between 1939–1940, suitably based to defend Wales and the borders. In April 1940 the Division transferred to Northern Ireland, where it remained until November 1941. It returned to the mainland again to defend Kent and the South Coast between 1941 and 1943.
Evidently, an individual sapper’s skills could be called on in special circumstances. An example is Arthur Mills, also a member of 244th Field Company and a plumber by trade. During the Blitz in 1940, he was engaged in bomb-disposal work, which consisted of digging a shaft down to an unexploded device so it could be removed.
Later, in 1941, Arthur Mills and nine other men from 244th Field Company were hand-picked for a special assignment overseas. They were issued with Arctic Warfare equipment, but were not told where they were going until their ship sailed. They then discovered that the destination was Iceland, where they spent two years before returning to the UK in 1941.
The 53rd Division, of which the 244th Field Company was part, did not see active service outside the UK until being landed on the Normandy Beaches late in June 1944, as one of the reinforcing units after the main Normandy Landings.
Dogs and their carers of No. 1 Dog Platoon, 277th Corps Field Park Company, Royal Engineers, with mines they located at Bayeux, 5 July 1944. Image credit: Imperial War Museums © IWM B 6506
A major threat faced by Allied troops lay in the many thousands of mines and booby-traps left by the retreating enemy. Sappers of the Royal Engineers like those in the 244th Field Company in which Arthur served distinguished themselves when they were called on to deal with potentially lethal hidden devices. Dogs were called on to help as you can see from the above photo.
Particularly dangerous were the German wooden box anti-personnel mines because their use of wood rather than metal made them difficult to detect. A film posted online by the Imperial War Museums shows three sappers serving with 244th Field Company as they probe with a bayonet and pitch forks for wooden 'Schu-mines' buried in the verges alongside the Heesch-s'Hertogenbosch road at Hintham, in the Netherlands. Another Royal Engineer uses a mine detector as he sweeps for mines near the tangled wreckage of a truck and along the road-side verges. You can see them at work at https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/record/910
Arthur may well have been one of them, had he lived. Perhaps a reader of this post will one day add to his story by explaining the sad circumstances of his death on 6 November 1942.
The next post is for GUNNER ALFRED EDMUND BURCH (1920-42), who died on 8 December 1942, and is buried in Karachi. You can read about him at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-8-december-1942-one-of-dearest.html
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