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In 1940 a first-year student at Oxford gave up his legal studies to serve his country in its time of need. He served with valour and distinction, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross for developing and then delivering battlewinning tactics that protected the flanks of the D-Day landings. But Guy Hudson also saw things that cannot be unseen, and experienced the horrors of war that become tattooed on one's soul. This is the story of a brave and patriotic sailor who helped sink the German battleship Bismarck, drove his Motor Torpedo Boat into enemy harbours right under the muzzles of Axis guns, and then pioneered radar control procedures for the small torpedo and gun boats that careered across pitch-dark maritime battlefields to guard the Allied landings in northern France. It is also the story of a man who turned to alcohol to control the darker memories created by war, and whose life and business collapsed due to the demon of drink, before he was rescued by his second wife. His legacy now lives on at the University of Oxford through the Guy Hudson Memorial Trust - this biography is his tribute.
About the author
Captain Chris O'Flaherty joined the Royal Navy in 1987. Deploying for much of his early career in the navy's smallest ships, he served as a diving and underwater bomb disposal officer in three different classes of minehunter and sweeper. After serving in Frigates and aircraft carriers in both the North Atlantic and the Middle East, and later commanding the Fleet Diving Squadron, in 2017 he was elected as the Royal Navy's Hudson Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Having completing his fellowship studying 'Naval Mines as an Instrument of Statecraft', he is presently serving as Captain of the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre.
