Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Title
Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Description
Reports arrival of latest cable and his reply which was delayed due to address problem with the French. Glad that a lot of his letters to them have finally arrives after 8 weeks in transit. Hopes mail situation will improve now and they will be able to take advantage of the consul route in near future. Discusses other letters send and received and catches up with news from home. Hopes they will sent parcel with soap as he is short of it. Mentions weather and that they are still short of cigarettes and tobacco.
Creator
Date
1942-02-03
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Two page handwritten letter
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
EHudsonJDHudsonP-HE420203
Transcription
Royal Air Force 755052. Sgt J. D. Hudson
c/o. Consul Général des États Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord
3-2-42
My Dear Mother & Dad
I was delighted to receive your cable of January 31st on Sunday, Feb 1st which read as follows!- “Delighted two cables twentieth [sic] eight letters Saturday Caleot Noveux but 21 parcel rejected [indecipherable word] trying to obtain permit all love” to which I replied the same day:- “ Delighted you received eight letters mail received from you, John, E.W.T. Dorothy, Mary Crumpsall dated end December all love. This cable was returned to me today because the Deuxième Bureau were questioning the E.W.T. accordingly I had to change this to Tatham and the wire went off again with two days delay. I don’t think it is necessary for me to say just how glad I was to know that this second batch of letters had reached you. Nov 21st was not too bad a date and the eight weeks taken in transit shows an improvement on some of the earlier ones. Tony received a cable today saying that some of his December letters had got through so perhaps w can expect letters back in future. I also expect we shall be able to take advantage of the Consular route very shortly. Of late letters have bn going this way and that probably accounts for the delay. I received a letter from John & one from Mary on Sunday, both written at the end of December. Mary seemed pleased with the communal letter which arrived at Calverley, & John also received a letter from [indecipherable word]. A previous letter from E.W.T. acknowledged one form m as well, so it does appear that the mail position is Improved. There is one point
[page break]
In John’s letter that is ambiguous and I cannot understand whether it is Bill, or Dorothy’s husband, who is now a Captain. If it is Bill his promotion has been rapid in direct contrast to that of John. I hope you will be able to send the parcel that Nelson rejected. Soap would be very much appreciated because we are very short. This afternoon we are going to make fig jam. We have quite a lot of blue figs and we intend boiling them for about four hours. We haven’t any sugar and hope they will preserve themselves with their own juice. The weather is getting warmer gradually. The wind still persists but the days and nights are cloudless. In the sun it is warm enough by day and this afternoon I intend doing a little something. I hope to send a few photos very soon – I expect by Consular mail - when the films are ready. There is a shortage of cigarettes now and for nearly a month we have almost existed without. I hope that before long this situation will be eased when the next supply waggon arrives. This place is a difficult one to supply, with the existing shortage of fuel and other things. There is not much I can say until I hear further from you. Your latest letter to arrive was dated December 27th so I anticipate further arrivals any day. It must have been a very pleasant surprise when eight of my letters clattered through the box all together and I can imagine your excitement. It is really good to receive your cables telling of the arrival of my mail, because I have written so many times and it is disappointing the think they should go astray. Now I will finish my letter in the usual way by sending you both all my love & best wishes. Keep smiling
[underlined] Douglas [/underlined]
c/o. Consul Général des États Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord
3-2-42
My Dear Mother & Dad
I was delighted to receive your cable of January 31st on Sunday, Feb 1st which read as follows!- “Delighted two cables twentieth [sic] eight letters Saturday Caleot Noveux but 21 parcel rejected [indecipherable word] trying to obtain permit all love” to which I replied the same day:- “ Delighted you received eight letters mail received from you, John, E.W.T. Dorothy, Mary Crumpsall dated end December all love. This cable was returned to me today because the Deuxième Bureau were questioning the E.W.T. accordingly I had to change this to Tatham and the wire went off again with two days delay. I don’t think it is necessary for me to say just how glad I was to know that this second batch of letters had reached you. Nov 21st was not too bad a date and the eight weeks taken in transit shows an improvement on some of the earlier ones. Tony received a cable today saying that some of his December letters had got through so perhaps w can expect letters back in future. I also expect we shall be able to take advantage of the Consular route very shortly. Of late letters have bn going this way and that probably accounts for the delay. I received a letter from John & one from Mary on Sunday, both written at the end of December. Mary seemed pleased with the communal letter which arrived at Calverley, & John also received a letter from [indecipherable word]. A previous letter from E.W.T. acknowledged one form m as well, so it does appear that the mail position is Improved. There is one point
[page break]
In John’s letter that is ambiguous and I cannot understand whether it is Bill, or Dorothy’s husband, who is now a Captain. If it is Bill his promotion has been rapid in direct contrast to that of John. I hope you will be able to send the parcel that Nelson rejected. Soap would be very much appreciated because we are very short. This afternoon we are going to make fig jam. We have quite a lot of blue figs and we intend boiling them for about four hours. We haven’t any sugar and hope they will preserve themselves with their own juice. The weather is getting warmer gradually. The wind still persists but the days and nights are cloudless. In the sun it is warm enough by day and this afternoon I intend doing a little something. I hope to send a few photos very soon – I expect by Consular mail - when the films are ready. There is a shortage of cigarettes now and for nearly a month we have almost existed without. I hope that before long this situation will be eased when the next supply waggon arrives. This place is a difficult one to supply, with the existing shortage of fuel and other things. There is not much I can say until I hear further from you. Your latest letter to arrive was dated December 27th so I anticipate further arrivals any day. It must have been a very pleasant surprise when eight of my letters clattered through the box all together and I can imagine your excitement. It is really good to receive your cables telling of the arrival of my mail, because I have written so many times and it is disappointing the think they should go astray. Now I will finish my letter in the usual way by sending you both all my love & best wishes. Keep smiling
[underlined] Douglas [/underlined]
Collection
Citation
James Douglas Hudson, “Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents ,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 21, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22588.
Item Relations
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