Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Letter number 13. Thanks them for their letter and catches up with news. Mentions writing to John but no reply. Writes of weather and signs of spring. Writes of leaving his wallet in his best tunic and then £3 being stolen. Other crew members had things stolen and he was angry as this was while they were risking their lives. Says he will make up his laundry parcel which he will take into town to post. Says boys are all OK apart from one who was in hospital with stomach problem on the night of Frankfurt trip. Mentions another DFM and that they had been flying with two second tour gunners recently.

1944-03-25

Four page handwritten letter with envelope

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EHudsonJDHudsonP-HE440325

13
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
Mr. & Mrs. H. E. Hudson.
191. Halifax Road.
Nelson.
Lancashire.
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[underlined] Letter No. 13 [/underlined]
Saturday. 1. pm.
My Dear Mother & Dad
Thank you very much for your letter of [deleted] Wednes [/deleted] [inserted] Fri [/inserted] day, just received acknowledging my letter No. 12.
I am very glad to learn that John & Mrs. Clayton are coming on Monday & I [underlined] know [/underlined] that you will enjoy their visit. I wish I could be there too. Anyway you will be able to give me some of the news. I wrote to John about four or five days ago but I have not had a reply yet. I suppose he will be very occupied getting “settled in” again & it is quite understandable. I hope he is feeling O.K.
The weather here has been milder recently & there are signs of spring
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in the hedgerows at long last, but everything is well behind time compared with last year.
What do you think happened yesterday? For the first time in my service life I forgot to change my wallet from my best tunic after going to town on Thursday night. I [underlined] definitely [/underlined] had £7 in it. When we got back from Berlin this morning I immediately took my wallet out of my tunic pocket on return to the billet and found that £3 had been pinched. Note, they only pinched £3 & left me with £4. Chapman had chocolate pinched out of his case & Bill had an orange missing. These last are trifles but it just shows the thieving types who hang around when we risk our lives for them!!!.
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I wish we could find the chap responsible, it would be my greatest pleasure to take him on the next trip & drag him through the bomb doors into the concentration of fires.
However, to change the subject. I am intending having a shower this afternoon & making up my laundry which I hope to post in town with this letter. I think you should receive this on Monday then.
I am pleased to be able to tell you that the boys are O.K. except for Monty who went to hospital [inserted] with stomach trouble [/inserted] on the night of the last Frankfurt trip. We had another D.F.M. gunner in his place so we have been
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flying with the ‘gonged’ second tour gunners recently.
I think that is all for now as I must make my preparations for the evening in town & write a quick letter to Alice.
Rooster sends his kind regards with a big wag of his rudder, the old faithful.
All my love & best wishes.
Douglas.
Jack Duffer is due back from leave on the 27th of the month. I don’t know what will happen to him then.
I hope he will be able to hang around here.