Unfriendly Fire: The Promising Life, Military Service and Senseless Murder of US Army Technician Fifth Grade Floyd O. Hudson Jr.

By John Hudson

On February 15, 1946, the life of US Army Technician Fifth Grade Floyd O. Hudson Jr. was cut short by fellow soldiers--all over a thrown beer bottle while still on active duty. Private Hudson's life had such promise. He and his brothers, who lived an idyllic life growing up at the Llangollen estate in Upperville, Virginia, were a successful music trio that had caught the eye and ear of Gene Autry, who was prepared to mentor them in the music industry. Unfortunately, those dreams suddenly ended for the Hudson brothers that awful night in Asperg, Germany.

Unfriendly Fire provides details of that night, gleaned from actual trial transcripts, which resulted in the conviction of three soldiers, who were sentenced to be hanged. It also includes a mysterious attempt by high-level politicians to commute the death sentences to hard labor. Due to a successful FOIA request on the eventual fate of these soldiers, we now know if that attempt succeeded.

But Unfriendly Fire also serves as a repository of a young soldier's musings on life and love, through dozens of letters written to his mother back home. Included in this book are images heretofore unpublished, which help tell the story--photos, newspaper clippings, Nazi memorabilia, and other period images.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638816317

John Hudson

John Hudson FRGS is a survival instructor, broadcaster, writer, public speaker and training consultant based in Cornwall, whose specialist work takes him to some of the most remote and extreme environments around the globe. A former RAF helicopter pilot, John is the British Military's Chief SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance & Extraction) Instructor, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He's also been a resident survival expert on two series of Discovery's prime-time TV show Survive That – a.k.a Dude You're Screwed in the USA – successfully putting his own resilience to the test on camera in front of millions. From the darkest depths of a jungle cenote, to the top of a stormy Alaskan glacier, John's sense of humour and everyday stoicism have won him many fans worldwide.

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Introduction

I grew up in Virginia hearing bits and pieces about my uncle Floyd (the family called him Junior), his service in World War II, and his death. It just wasn’t talked about. Every now and then, I would come across a letter or a photo or a piece of Nazi memorabilia, and I would wonder about what really happened to him and why it was so hard to talk about. In my later years, I realized that recalling my uncle’s death was just too painful for the family—especially my grandmother Hudson (Junior’s mother), whom we lost in 1960 at sixty years old; my uncle Graham (Junior’s brother), whom we lost in 1993 at sixty-seven years old; my father, Francis Hudson (Junior’s brother), whom we lost in 2017, just eleven days shy of ninety years old; and my uncle Louis (Junior’s brother), whom we lost in 2018 at age eighty-six. It wasn’t until 2016, when I finally urged my father to talk about his brother and their early years growing up, that I developed the desire to write Junior’s biography. His reminiscences make up a part of this story—a story of a promising life, of a potentially successful music career, and of a bizarre and tragic death at the hands of his fellow soldiers.

I realized my father possessed one hundred letters written by Junior to my grandmother during his military service, which gave an eye-opening narrative of daily life in the US Army in Germany during the war and of a young man’s musings on life and love. Newspaper articles and other family memorabilia he possessed just enhanced the telling of the story of such a short life. Junior was only twenty-one years old when he was murdered.

The catalyst that finally filled in the missing pieces for this biography was the declassifying of the transcripts from the murder trial. Suddenly, I had the names of the convicted murderers and the extensive details of what really happened that tragic February night in 1946 in Asperg, Germany. Sadly, only my uncle Louis lived to learn of these details. His eyes were filled with tears after reading this account.

Early Life

On May 17, 1923, Floyd Oliver Hudson Sr. (Floyd) and Mary Frances Yowell (Mary Frances) were married in Hagerstown, Maryland. They began their life together in Boyce, Virginia, where Floyd worked at Boyce Garage with his brother-in-law Frank Yowell, Henry Jenkins; and Sam Burch, while Mary Frances was a homemaker.

Junior’s birth certificate

Their marriage produced four healthy sons—Floyd Oliver Jr. (known as Junior to his family and the subject of this biography), born March 4, 1924; Graham Eugene, born June 11, 1926; Francis Yowell, born January 31, 1928; and Louis Meredith, born October 23, 1932. They lived a quiet life in the small incorporated town of Boyce until Floyd was offered the job of managing the broodmare barn at a large horse estate in Upperville, Virginia—Llangollen.

The main house at Llangollen, home to John and Liz Whitney in the 1930s. The estate is located on Trapp Road in Upperville, Virginia. The broodmare barn can be seen in the back yard.

The entire family moved to Llangollen in the mid-1930s and were provided with a house on the 4,200-acre property that was situated at the beginning of the tree line of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This house was a large two-story log home with a cedar shake roof, featuring a screened porch on the first floor that was level with the front yard and a rear second-floor screened porch that was level with the backyard, since the land sloped dramatically. Heat was provided by a coal-fired furnace and hot-water circulation. There was a large living room with a beautiful stone fireplace and a large dining room with a separate stone fireplace. The kitchen had a wood stove for cooking, but all meals were typically eaten together in the dining room, preceded by a prayer from Floyd. If you were late for the family meal, you did without. There was no going to the kitchen to eat.

Upstairs, Floyd and Mary Frances had a large bedroom with a walk-in closet. There was a large guest bedroom, a sewing room, a full bathroom, and a very large room with three single beds, where the oldest three sons slept. Most of the time, Junior, Graham, and Francis fought over who slept where.

Liz Whitney taking a jump at the Upperville Horse Show Grounds in the 1930s

Llangollen was the home of John Hay and Elizabeth Altemus Whitney—a gift from John to his new bride. Eventually, Mrs. Whitney would own several other Llangollens—Llangollen Rancho in California; Llangollen in Miami, Florida; and Llangollen estates in Ireland and Peru. The large Upperville estate had a beautiful main house, where the Whitneys resided; a dairy barn, where 144 Guernsey cows were milked by hand daily; an icehouse, where pond ice was stored in alternating layers of ice and straw; a blacksmith’s shop run by a Native American who the boys called Chief; a dog kennel that housed 150 canines; and six big barns specific to equestrian needs, such as broodmares, yearlings, show horses, and studs. The broodmare barn that Floyd managed was built in a C shape and was located in a hollow a quarter mile from the family’s log house. He walked to work daily. Each of his three oldest sons had duties, such as cleaning the ten stalls, feeding the horses, and providing hay—pretty easy work, according to son Francis during an interview. The show horse barn had a billiards and feed room on one end and an estate trophy room on the other.

Norman Haymaker stands in the trophy room at Llangollen

A little about Mrs. Whitney. She was an excellent equestrian and a trapshooter of clay pigeons. However, you never had to guess what she was thinking. She was very demanding but seldom fired any of her employees. She was friends with national politicians, top-drawer entertainers, and industry leaders. Francis recalled overhearing Mrs. Whitney tell a sitting president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) to go to hell. She was, in his words, ornery and unorthodox. On another occasion, she was riding and stopped her horse to toss Francis a ten-carat diamond ring that was hurting her finger. He stuck it in his pocket and gave it back to her later that evening.

She also owned at one time a 1933 Duesenberg, painted in her stable colors of pink and purple. This car was so well-known that, on a trip from California to Virginia, she was observed speeding through many jurisdictions. Knowing that police cars were ill-equipped to chase a car of that prestige and horsepower, she found seventy speeding tickets in the mail when she arrived home. She also thought nothing of flying her helicopter to the Charles Town Racetrack in Charles Town, West Virginia, and landing in the paddock, which was against the law.

She also had a mean side, particularly with her suitors. She got mad at her boyfriend Jim Wiley once and instructed Francis to put croton oil in his drink, which causes severe diarrhea. Francis didn’t want to do it, but she demanded. Mr. Wiley had several drinks that night. The next morning, he came to the breakfast table and was asked how he felt. He responded, Terrible. I about to shit myself to death last night.

On another occasion, she asked Francis to clean and wax the main hallway in the big house. She then proceeded to let several dogs in, who ruined the floor with their feces. The next morning, Francis was angry at the mess the dogs had made, and he told Mr. Wiley about what Mrs. Whitney had done.

I’ll fix her, he replied. As Mrs. Whitney came down the stairs, he took an expensive fur coat of hers hanging by the front door and threw it across the floor, picking up dog feces in the process.

Mrs. Whitney was also known for throwing the wildest parties many people had ever attended. On one memorable occasion, after a horse sale, she decided to bring a donkey and a monkey into her house and proceeded to get them both drunk on bourbon. Francis recalled that by the end of the evening, the donkey had relieved himself over and over on the expensive rugs, and the monkey was swinging from a large chandelier.

Junior on a sidewalk in the 1930s

Growing up on such a property was a dream come true for the active Hudson brothers. They enjoyed hunting, fishing, ice-skating, sledding, baseball, squash (at an underground regulation squash court on the property), tennis, and swimming in an Olympic-sized pool. Floyd and Francis traveled to Boyce, Virginia, regularly together to pitch horseshoes.

Copperheads were abundant at Llangollen. Francis shot twenty-four adult snakes with a .22 rifle in one season. Once, he did not see that a snake had crawled between his legs. Before it had a chance to strike, Junior shot it out from between his legs—from a distance.

For fun, the boys threw walnuts at each other and created spears out of rigid cornstalks. Once, Graham launched a spear at Francis, which went all the way through his lip. He carried that lip scar his entire life.

Junior in a school picture from 1934, aged 10

When it snowed, Mrs. Whitney would enlist the services of one of her Belgian draft horses (one of the strongest of the heavy breeds) and a drag, and with some farmhands, she would create a mile-long sled run down the mountain. If the snow was deep enough, the run would be built over fences. The run was slick, and fast speeds were attained. Once the run was over, the draft horse would pull the riders back up the mountain to go again. Mrs. Whitney would regularly join them for the fun.

Food was plentiful, and Mary Frances was an excellent cook, according to Francis, particularly her rolls and pies. They always had plenty to eat. Unlimited milk allowed the boys to consume up to a half gallon of fresh milk daily, often from cups hanging in the dairy barn with their names on them. As the cream cooled, it became too thick to pour but made the richest ice cream.

Typical breakfasts were eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and lots of milk. They ate a variety of locally sourced meats—beef, pork, wild game, squirrels, rabbits, and pheasants. Floyd, along with his boys, planted an acre garden, with horse manure and six to eight inches of straw producing potatoes as big as gallon Karo syrup cans.