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During the next period of Hudson’s life there occurred a series of events which brought out some typical elements of his character: his bloody-minded refusal to submit to authority which he deemed to be misplaced, his determined honesty almost to a fault and his almost heroic refusal to compromise in any moral dilemma, his ability to be dispassionate about his qualities and failings and his acceptance of his fate, however cruel it might be, without enduring bitterness.
His first reaction to life in beleaguered England was astonishment at how much of the population, although sad at the evacuation from Dunkirk, seemed determined to carry on as if nothing much had happened. He and his family were billeted in a large suburban house near Rotherham in Yorkshire. His host was a kindly businessman.
The general opinion seemed to be that we were well rid of unreliable allies, and that now at any rate we knew where we stood. As for invasion, the British Navy would see to that but if some Germans slipped through they would now meet men who were determined to fight. . . . These hard-headed businessmen, kindly as they were in personal relations, could think only in terms of economics and their own depleted pockets or those of their companies.
In social life their wives discussed domestic affairs and their friends and acquaintances’ weaknesses, interminably. They entertained endlessly among themselves. Their husbands gathered in corners and still continued to talk business and how to make or save money, including complicated methods of evading income tax. Dunkirk had stirred their generous instincts, but it could not alter their otherwise innate and deep-seated materialism.
There followed an event which, deliberately or not, seems largely to have evaded historians of the period. Hudson was, of course, still commanding his brigade. All officers of his rank or over in the Corps were summoned to a room in a hotel in York for a conference where they would be addressed by a very important person. On arrival they were carefully checked. There they waited speculating as to who the VIP might be, Hudson personally expecting the King.
The door opened and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Dill, appeared ushering in Mr Anthony Eden, the recently appointed Secretary of State for War. Eden, after a few remarks on the gravity of the general situation, wasted little time in coming to the real point of his visit. The Prime Minister, he said, had told the nation in the clearest possible terms his policy for the future. He then quoted from that wonderful broadcast in which Mr Winston Churchill had said that Britain would never give in.
‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the Old.’
He, Anthony Eden, was responsible to his Chief for seeing that this policy was implemented. His first duty was to find out what the temper of the Army was, so that he could report from personal knowledge to the Prime Minister. He proposed therefore to ask each one of us in turn if, in our opinion, the troops under our command could be counted on to continue the fight in all circumstances.
There was an almost audible gasp all round the table. To us it seemed almost incredible, almost an impertinence, that such a question should be asked of us. Eden, no doubt, and wisely, was not averse to shaking us out of our tendency towards complacency. After a pause he rose again to his feet and said he did not want to appear defeatist in his attitude but we had some very hard facts to face. The Navy could not guarantee to prevent considerable forces from landing on our shores; the Air Force would have to face enormous odds and difficulties. The Army would be for some time pitifully weak in arms and equipment. In spite of everything that might be done, a moment might come when the Government would have to make, at short notice, a terrible decision. That point might come when in the opinion of the Government it would be definitely unwise to throw in, in a futile effort to save a hopeless situation, badly armed men against an enemy firmly lodged in England and in possession of our southern ports, bases and arsenals.
The question he was putting to us, the answer to which would obviously considerably influence the decision to be made at the time, was whether our troops would, if called on, embark at a northern port, say Liverpool, while it was still in our hands, in order to be withdrawn to, say, Canada? Without such a nucleus of trained troops from the Home Country the Prime Minister’s declared policy of carrying on the fight from overseas would be infinitely more difficult to carry out.
In dead silence one after the other was asked the question which was now so different in its complexion and implications. It was not necessary to pose the same question to all the individuals round the table, for it was very soon apparent that all were of much the same opinion. The proportion who would respond to the call among Regular officers would be high. Of Regular NCOs, and men who were unmarried, nearly as high. No one dared, however, to estimate any exact proportion amongst those officers and men who had only come forward for the war; a smaller proportion of unmarried men might respond but the very great majority of these would insist either on fighting it out in England, as they would want to do, or on taking their chances with their families whatever the consequences might be.
Eden then turned to his second point. Was the assembled company in agreement with the proposal that the Army should in fact fight on the beaches and continue, as in the declared policy, to fight every step of the way?
There was almost unanimous agreement with the policy, but, perhaps typically, Hudson ‘thought different’. He said that he believed that the best form of defence was attack and that when it became clear that an invasion was imminent a series of small scale raids should be made ‘aimed at suitable points along the French and Belgian coasts . . . the enemy would hesitate to launch an invasion fleet of troop-filled barges if at points near the launching areas we had offensive-minded troops on their immediate flank. This method would entail serious risks but to leave the initiative entirely to the enemy was, in his opinion, a greater danger.’ There was no support for Hudson’s ideas and the conference came to an end.
It was not long after this conference that Hudson was informed that he had been awarded the CB (Companion of the Order of the Bath) for his services during the retreat from Dunkirk. At that time he thought that this was more or less a routine ration dole out for the next on the list. He felt considerable shame, therefore, when Alexander said to him one day: ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the honour done you in being awarded the CB. Do you realise that only one per corps was allotted for distribution after Dunkirk? You were selected from all the officers of the rank of colonel or over in the first corps, and General Montgomery in the second corps.
‘I could only apologise for my seeming ingratitude, for it must obviously have been Alexander who had recommended me.’
All the previous doubts about his suitability for command of a brigade in action, which had been the bane of his life when stationed in Aldershot before the war, were therefore totally dispelled with this honour.
After a conference at the War Office at which Hudson again disagreed with the proposal that all beaches should be defended, it was eventually decided that the role of Hudson’s brigade in the event of an invasion should be to be ready to move at the shortest possible notice. Furthermore, that they should carry out a counter-attack at any point on the great arc of the coast of England formed by the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, a coastline of about a 120 miles. For this purpose they moved to a central point from which the range to the furthest point of the coast was up to 30 or 40 miles, and given civilian charabancs as transport. He discovered to his fury that while the peacetime charabancs were still being used for pleasure trips he was given old and decrepit vehicles which often broke down. This only confirmed his conviction that the British people and some of its leaders simply did not appreciate the mortal danger in which they lay.
During the next few weeks there were other signs of the same phenomenon. When Hudson had insisted on his brigade practising their action in the event of an invasion in his area twice a week, there were grumbles both from the battalions under him and from higher authority. When he had signs fixed to the telegraph poles showing the various routes to the coast he was told that this was against Post Office regulations. He was inclined to ask if a German invasion was also against Post Office regulations. When his Brigade was sent to Inveraray in Scotland to train in landing operations he was appalled to find that little had been done about the construction of landing craft. There were insufficient numbers even for training purposes with one brigade. In fact, the lack of landing craft would have put paid to the ideas he had advanced about constant raids on the French and Belgian coasts to disrupt German invasion plans.
When Hudson was at Inveraray he stayed with the Duke of Argyll.
He was a charming old man and host, but he was a full-blooded autocrat, and just could not understand modern democratic ideas. As a staunch loyalist he was prepared to accept sacrifice up to his own standard of limit. But that soldiers should be allowed to roam at will over his moors, and erect tents and even huts in his private park, was beyond that limit. What, he asked, would happen to the deer?’
It had not entered my mind to wonder if, and when, I was going to be promoted Major-General until I got hints from one of the staff. From these I gathered there were doubts in some people’s minds as to my fitness to command a Division. I had my own doubts, for there is a great difference between a Brigade and a Division. However that was other people’s responsibility and I was not in the least worried. Then, at very short notice I was told by phone I had been promoted to command a Division then serving on the Scottish border between Edinburgh and Glasgow. I was to report to my new headquarters within forty-eight hours.
On his arrival he was immediately plunged into a most unfortunate drama. His Chief Administrative Staff Officer came to see him to say that one of the commanding officers of a battalion in his division was challenging the authority of his brigade commander. The colonel, a large colliery owner, had raised from his own colliery the battalion he was commanding. He acted as if the battalion was his own private army. The culminating clash with his brigadier came when, shortly after an order had been promulgated that officers were not to use their official cars on private journeys, the brigadier had found out that the colonel, without asking for permission to leave his station, had used his official car to go to Nottingham. Hudson immediately said that the Brigadier was to put the colonel under open arrest (an action which entailed the culprit being suspended from his duty and kept under surveillance until a court of enquiry or a court martial could be set up). The Staff Officer, somewhat taken aback, said that there were some complications. The colonel was a Member of Parliament, he had been summoned urgently to dine in Nottingham with Winston Churchill and had not had time to ask for permission to leave his station. Furthermore, the Speaker of the House of Commons must immediately be told that one of his MPs had been arrested and given the reasons for the action.
Hudson replied that he had no intention of starting his new job by not supporting one of his brigadiers and ordered the arrest to go ahead.
Next day Hudson received a plethora of telephone calls and telegrams from the War Office and the Commander in Chief Scottish Command and others. He was told that the dinner was not a private one but a public function at which the colonel had been asked to propose Winston Churchill’s health. Hudson still refused to change his mind and even offered to resign his command if that would help. The situation was eventually resolved by transferring the battalion which, unfortunately, came from Hudson’s own original regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, to another division where the commander was more amenable and the arrest was cancelled.
The affair ended with the colonel, in a great gesture of magnanimity, asking Hudson to inspect his battalion before it was transferred and making a fulsome speech in Hudson’s honour as an old officer of the regiment. ‘In private he apologised for the whole unfortunate affair and we parted with mutual expressions of good will.’
It is difficult, if not impossible, to make judgements about incidents of this kind. There are clear arguments on both sides, but it does appear on the surface that Hudson had made a mistake in sticking to his order when the full circumstances had been revealed, but his character was such that, even in retrospect, his actions were probably inevitable.
Hudson’s division was then transferred to Norfolk to act as a reserve to the divisions on the coast in the event of an invasion. Hudson was told by a friend – a general on the Home Forces staff – that his new corps commander had a reputation for sacking his subordinates, but that he should not worry too much, as he was unlikely to last long.
My interview with my new Corps Commander was not at first encouraging, though it ended on a happier note. I could not quite make out whether he was deliberately rude because he wanted to see my reaction or because he was deficient in both manners and imagination. He referred to my being the holder of a VC and made the sort of remarks which I had heard occasionally before from people who are obviously professionally jealous. He said he had had a Brigadier VC under him in France, and he had been a splendid chap but one of the stupidest men he had ever known. He had, he said, never known a VC who was not charming nor one who was capable of commanding more than a battalion in peacetime, or a Brigade in war. He hoped he had now met the exception to the rule!
The corps commander had been in the Royal Corps of Signals and Hudson found him rather a pathetic figure who chain-smoked continually to calm his shaken nerves. ‘He lived in continual fear of being passed over for promotion.’ There were only two divisions in the corps, one on the coast and of little tactical interest for it was fully extended along the beaches. The corps commander began to occupy himself solely with Hudson’s division, visiting it without telling Hudson that he was doing so and generally grossly interfering in Hudson’s handling of his command.
He visited battalions and wrote copious notes about their training and administration direct to battalion or Brigade Commanders. He ran exercises for officers or attended mine and in these he generally seemed to manage to place himself in opposition to myself in any argument that arose. He even asked me to assemble my officers so that an outside lecturer on training could address them at my Headquarters, under his chairmanship. The culminating point came when, acting as Corps Commander in his absence, I found a letter in my basket from a battalion Commander in my own Division which referred to an operation called ‘Stag’ of which I had never heard. The opening sentence of a second letter, also from a battalion Commander read: ‘You asked me to let you know direct . . . .’ I had been strictly loyal to my Corps Commander in the fullest meaning of the word but I felt that a limit must be set to this private correspondence with my subordinates behind my back which was in time bound to undermine my authority and lead possibly to unpleasant complications.
Hudson then wrote an official letter of complaint, mentioning the two letters he had found and quoting other incidents of a similar nature. He received no answer for a time and then he was visited by the corps commander who was very conciliatory and promised not to interfere with his division. ‘He was ultra-friendly and almost sentimental.’ Hudson agreed to tear his letter up and not to refer to it again. The corps commander said he was going on a fortnight’s leave and on his return he would ‘mend his ways’.
On his return, however, the corps commander came to see Hudson and told him that he had just realised that Hudson’s rank as a major-general would be confirmed shortly – six months after he had taken up the job – and that it would then be much more difficult to get rid of him. He handed Hudson an official report in which he stated that he was, in his opinion, unfit to command a division. He ended the conversation, surprisingly, by saying that he hoped Hudson would not think he was taking the course he had in order to save his skin. He went on to say that Hudson was free to appeal against the decision. He did so.
Meanwhile I had been trying to look at the whole matter as objectively as I could. The important point was whether or not I was fitted to command a Division: nothing else really mattered. On this point I was by no means confident. The Corps Commander had said that there was a great gulf fixed between a first-class Brigade Commander, as he conceded I might have been, and a reasonably good Divisional Commander. I knew this was true. I felt that I did not really fit the bill as a General in some important respects. I was not ‘showman’ enough. Round a conference table or during large-scale training exercise, when I was asked to express an opinion without previous preparation, I was apt to make a poor showing. On the other hand, though I might be too reckless, I felt that on active services I had qualities which perhaps justified my retention, though this was a point which I could hardly make in cold blood in any protest.
Alexander who knew me as a Commander in war was in the Middle East, or I might have asked for his advice and championship.
The War Office representative who came to see me had told me in so many words that the Corps Commander’s report was regarded with grave suspicion. In the course of conversation I told him ‘off the record’ of the letter I had written to the Corps Commander and the reason I had done so. I told him too that I had agreed to regard this episode as closed, and that I was not prepared to mention it in any protest I now made without further consideration. He left me in no doubt that should I mention the letter it would have a very considerable bearing on the ultimate decision on my case.
In the event, Hudson was summoned to the War Office. The general who interviewed him was clearly aware of the letter Hudson had written (he had told his senior staff officer who must have passed it on) and tried to get him to refer to it as a reason for his sacking. Hudson had been told that if he allowed the letter to be used in evidence against the corps commander his case would be looked at again but he had given his word not to mention it again and he refused to do so.
Hudson handed over his division to an old and sympathetic friend and went on leave. He had to take down the general’s insignia on his uniform and revert to his substantive rank of Colonel. ‘There are few blows in life which are more shattering than wounded pride. I felt personally shamed and disgraced. I had worn the insignia of a general long enough to become known to relatives, friends and acquaintances as such, and now I had to tell them that I had dropped to a rank lower than that I had held before the war.’
He tried to look at the whole affair as objectively as he could. He knew that he did not really fit the bill in some respects. The die, however, was cast and he faced the future hoping for an active command of some kind.
He did get command of a brigade, in Northern Ireland – not a very active theatre. During his stay there, apart from routine training, there were two incidents of note. In conditions of the utmost secrecy, dressed in civilian clothes, he was sent to the South in order to reconnoitre routes for a possible, although extremely unlikely, invasion of the South. The U-boat campaign against British merchant shipping was becoming extremely efficient and Britain was in some danger of being starved out. The British Navy was hampered by not being able to use the Irish ports which meant that escort vessels had to travel many miles further on the way to the scene of action than would have been the case if the Irish ports were available to them. It had been decided, as a very last resort, that if the moment came when real starvation threatened the nation, it might be necessary to consider whether or not to secure these ports for Britain for British Naval use by an invasion. There were very large numbers of Southern Irish serving in the British forces (in fact a higher proportion of the population than that of Northern Ireland itself which never had conscription) and it is impossible to know what their reaction would have been to the invasion by Britain of their home country. The situation, however, never even approached starvation levels and the question of invasion never arose.
The second event was the arrival of some American forces in Northern Ireland. One battalion – the first to come to Europe – came under Hudson’s command for a river-crossing exercise. The American battalion was in reserve in order to counterattack if the enemy crossed the river.
The Americans had been training in the great open spaces of the southern states of America with broad roads on which to move. They had immense motor carriers, which could hardly move at all down the narrow Northern Ireland lanes, and only with the greatest difficulty did they reach their allotted area at all.
When I went to see them I found them enthusiastically keen. I explained that I would call on them to make one of three possible counter-attacks to regain control of a blown bridge site. I was assured I had only to give the word and could leave the rest to them. In due course the ‘enemy’ made their assault-boat crossing at about 2 a.m. I at once sent off my young American liaison officer on his powerful motorbike with orders to return with the expected hour of his battalion’s advance.
After a long wait I sent one of our officers and he returned to tell me that the whole battalion had firmly retired to rest in their camp beds, wearing pyjamas. The Commanding Officer, roused with difficulty, had said that after they had waited all day for the order to counter-attack he had supposed they would not be called on that night and the battalion must now be given time to get their breakfasts. I realised for the first time how unrealistic was the American conception of war at that time.
Hudson then received an order to go on embarkation leave immediately as he was shortly to go to Cyprus as a major-general to take command of the garrison, which was to be brought up to the strength of a division. He was to be flown out from an airfield near Burley, in the New Forest, where his wife and son were living at the time. He had his major-general’s insignia sewn on his uniform again and was walking across the tarmac towards the aeroplane when he was given a telegram cancelling his appointment. He was to return to his brigade in Northern Ireland.
The Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland was an old friend, General Franklin. One day he told Hudson that the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Brooke, wanted to see him. Brooke said that General Alexander, commanding in the Middle East was glad when Hudson was to be sent to Cyprus under his command but the scare had died down and it had been decided not to form a division there. He added, however, that Hudson need not worry as he would be given a division at the first available opportunity.
Shortly afterwards the division was sent to England and when Hudson’s brigade was stationed near St Albans he received a telegram from his wife to say that his son, John, had been killed in action in North Africa. This was a shattering blow. He and his wife later learnt that John had been leading his platoon in an attack when a machine gun had opened up on them. John ‘had jumped up and had tried to lead them forward but the machine gun opened up again and he fell. He was later carried back to the regimental aid post where he died.’ Hudson had never really recovered from the anguish of leaving his son behind on his posting to Singapore many years before. He was consumed by remorse and grief.
The brigade was then moved to Dover which was just in shell range of the Germans in France, but they did not open fire unless the British fired first. He had not been there long when General Franklin called to see him. He said that the selection committee which appointed senior officers had turned Hudson down to command a division on account of his age – he was just over the recently imposed age limit of 48. This, Franklin said, would have been waived if it had not been for one nigger in the woodpile. Hudson never discovered who he was. As he put it in his journal:
Being in principle, and I hope in practice, against the colour bar I am quite prepared to accept that a nigger, even in a woodpile, can be right.
Franklin then told me that it was obvious that age would now bar my employment in an active command. He had studied the vacancies in various types of employment available and had found one which he thought I would prefer to a routine administrative command. It involved my going to Iraq to command the local Levies. He would recommend me for the job, if I wished, and anticipated no difficulty over this. It was the best he could do, and he advised me to go unless I had any particular objection to a hot climate. I accepted his advice.