First mission On 13 June 1940, Hudson joined the
Royal Fusiliers. He described his experiences as a soldier "mostly boring." After mentioning that he spoke French, in January 1942 he was ordered to go to a meeting at the
War Office. At that meeting he was invited to join the SOE and become an agent in France. After training Hudson was selected to create and lead the Headmaster circuit (or network) which was to operate in the
Auvergne region, centered on the city of
Clermont-Ferrand which was in
Vichy France, at the time the part of France not occupied by the Germans. On 24 September 1942, Hudson, code named
Marc, parachuted into Vichy France with his two assistants
Brian Rafferty, a courier, and George Jones, a wireless operator. With help from the Werther's, a Jewish family, Hudson set up a headquarters near
Le Crest. However, about October 8, he was captured by the Vichy police. He had hopes that the police would release him, but instead he was put on trial and sentenced to five years in prison on the charge of illegal entry into France. He was transported to a large prison near
Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwestern France. He attempted unsuccessfully to bribe the guards to allow him to escape and noted that in 1943, as the war turned in favor of the allies, the French guards became friendlier. On 3 January 1944, Hudson and 53 other prisoners escaped the prison. They were helped by SOE agents
George Starr and
Anne-Marie Walters to cross the
Pyrenees to
Spain on foot and, with aid from the British Consulate in Barcelona, to make their way to
Gibraltar and hence by airplane to Britain.
Second mission Hudson, code named
Albin; returned to France on 9 April 1944. Parachuting with him was
Muriel Byck, a wireless operator who would soon die of
meningitis. His area of operations was
Sarthe centered on the city of
Le Mans. His task was to build up the resistance networks, arm them with weapons and equipment parachuted in, and train them in the use of the weapons. His network focused on ambushes and disabling telephone lines. Hudson requested SOE to send him a female courier, women being able to travel more easily than men, and in late May
Sonya Butt arrived. That was a shock to him as they had had a brief romance in England prior to her marriage to another SOE agent,
Guy D'Artois. Butt, only nineteen years old when recruited, was SOE's youngest agent. Hudson and Butt quickly resumed their romance and she, bold and forthright, took on responsibilities of organization and weapons training. To finance the resistance groups, called
maquis, Hudson borrowed 200,000 French Francs (about 7,000 British pounds in 1944) from the Catholic Church in Le Mans. SOE later repaid the loan. With the capture of Le Mans on 9 August 1944, Hudson and his group offered their services to the American army and worked behind the German defense lines supplying intelligence to the Americans. Butt was raped by two German soldiers during this time. In mid September Hudson's work in France was finished as the allied armies had expelled the Germans. Hudson and Butt met her husband, Guy, in Paris, and Butt proclaimed her love for D'Artois, thus ending the romance between her and Hudson.
Southeast Asia Returning to Great Britain in September 1944, Hudson joined
Force 136, an SOE operation in
Southeast Asia contesting the Japanese occupation. He traveled by ship to Bombay and hence to Ceylon (now
Sri Lanka) where he trained potential resisters to the Japanese. In early 1945, he parachuted into
Thailand to organize the Thai resistance. After the war with Japan ended in September 1945, he assisted in the repatriation of allied
prisoners-of-war from camps scattered around Southeast Asia, plus the repatriation of Japanese prisoners-of war to Japan. Hudson became, in his own words, "de facto governor" of
Pakse,
Laos until French rule was restored. With a rank of
Lt. Colonel, Hudson was demobilized in February 1946. For his work with SOE, Hudson was honoured twice with a
Distinguished Service Order, plus a
Croix de Guerre. ==After the war==