This week Yesterday Once More looks at a remarkable diary which records the experiences of a York soldier during the Second World War.

We begin the story of Sergeant Douglas Hudson, whose family lived in Pulleyn Drive, in December 1942.

Sgt Hudson had joined the East Yorkshire Regiment as a 21-year old private in January 1940. After almost three years of exercises, manoeuvres and training, he was about to see active service – first in North Africa, and then on the great push through Italy.

In an entry in his diary on December 18, he describes how he left the family home and got on a train at York Railway Station so he could join his regiment, which was to sail for Algiers.

His mother Hannah and his older sister Enid stood in a railway cutting to wave him off.

He wrote: “The train was packed and I just managed to get to the window to wave a large handkerchief as directed. I wonder if they saw me, as bodies seemed to be hanging out of every window.”

Over the next three years, the young Sergeant Hudson was to keep a detailed diary of everything that happened to him, scribbling away in a quiet corner for five to ten minutes each night, with the help of a torch if he had one.

The diary covered his experiences in Africa, in Italy and in the Middle East during the war – and doesn’t stint when it comes to the details.

“Everything in it is true,” said Mr Hudson, now a 95-year-old retired insurance manager who lives in Clifton.

Keeping a diary was strictly forbidden, he admits. Had he been caught, the penalties could have been quite severe. “But I just thought all the horrible things that were happening to me ought to be recorded.”

For years after the end of the war, the diaries were stored in Mr Hudson’s loft, in York, then in Cheltenham, where he worked for 20 years, and then back in York again after he returned in 1972.

When his wife Margaret died a few years ago, he was looking for something to keep him occupied. So he dug the diaries out, typed them up, and showed them to his daughter Susan. She in turn showed them to a journalist friend who said he ought to do something with them.

So he did. His diaries will be published by Arthur H Stockwell on February 21, under the title Soldier 4346057: A Second World War Diary.

They provide a vivid, first-hand, contemporaneous account of what it is like to be at war: one that pulls no punches.


Here are a few extracts:

North Africa
January 1, 1943, Algiers:

The sight of Algiers from the sea was a wonderful one, and I shall never forget it. There were large mosques and white flat-topped buildings which stood out against a background of brown and green hills.


February 28, 1943: Battle for Sedjenane, North Africa:

We moved steadily down the valley in single file. No sooner had we stretched out than Borril shouted “ME 109s!” They swooped down and strafed the length of the wadi. How Borril saw them I shall never know.

Towards late afternoon the shelling was all to our rear. We came across some medium artillery sheltered in a wood. The Germans obviously knew of this artillery for there was the most terrific stonk. We dived for cover.

The air stank and a thin veil of dust arose all round the wood. I was in a trench with Goodrum and Ounsley and a shell hit a tree just to one side. When a short break came we peeped over the top and were horrified to see a tank. Then we heard the gunners giving fire orders. The tank burst into flames.


Italy 
September 9, 1943: aboard LST (landing ship for tanks) 371 for the landing at Salerno beach: 

Bits of AA splinters were landing here and there on the deck. Then came the awful screech, louder and louder, of a stick of bombs.

Seemed like an eternity. Then came a crunch and the whole ship lurched.

The engines on the LST revved up and we charged for the beach letting the anchor down about 100 yards from the edge.

The jaws of the boat opened and after hours of training in water to waist deep we simply stepped off the ramp into not more than a foot As I lay in the grass growing out of the dunes I noticed a dark figure, motionless a few yards away.

I felt a slight tingling sensation when I noticed a dark German helmet on the body. He was quite dead.

In ten minutes from landing, we moved off quietly, through a large vineyard and met some Hampshires and Commando, their faces all black. Their news was grim. They confirmed that the initial advance had not gone well and that there had been a lot of Hampshire casualties.


October 6, 1943:

Moved forward through Pompeii and Naples out on to the plain of Villa Literno. Naples was an absolute shambles and chaos everywhere. Hundreds of people asking for food, no bread or light and infected water supply. Shells dropped all around us at intervals all day.


October 20, 1943, Francolise:

A couple of Gerry prisoners came in. The Intelligence Sergeant of Brigade HQ set out a trestle table in front of a tracked vehicle and we saw a captain appear, sit down at the table with a map and in came prisoner no 1. He looked about 40, dishevelled and generally a surly type. The captain was obviously not making the progress he wanted with this chap and he called the Sergeant who grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, bent him over and gave him six of the best across his bottom and upper limbs.


November 9, 1943:

12 FW 190s surprised us as we had only seconds to stand to when hearing planes. They literally fell out of the sky in line and whilst all hell was let loose at them the VP gun caught a direct hit and killed all the detachment including Sergeant Oxberry.


March 26, 1946, return home to York:

I had not told the family of my arrival. No taxis, and with long bus queues I decided to wander slowly up the Mount carrying my cardboard box of ill-fitting clothes. The mind was something of a blank, really. Here was the day one had longed for, yet it all seemed so ordinary.

I knocked hard on the front door with no response. I went round to the side and again no response.

My fault, I thought, and then I saw my father in the garden digging for some spring planting.

• Soldier 4346057: A Second World War Diary by Douglas Hudson is published on February 21 by Stockwell, priced £7.99