Naked Gunner’s life more than an exposed battle
FOR the past 35 years the family of Wilbert “Darky” Hudson have travelled to the Top End to show their support for the man commonly known as the Naked Gunner.
Darky received the Military Medal for shooting down a Japanese bomber with ammunition man Tex Campbell in nothing but his boots and helmet.
The bombs fell and air raid sirens sounded when Hudson was in the shower so he ran to join the fight in his towel – which didn’t last long in the heat of battle.
The often humours portrayal of Darky was just one of many challenging experiences for him in the war.
Just four months after shooting down the bomber, Darky was horrifically burned while defending oil tanks which impacted the remainder of his life
His son Robert Hudson, 69, from Sydney said his father was a quiet man who was physically and mentally scarred by the war.
“Dad never talked about the war,” he said.
“Because Dad was burned so badly he wanted to forget a lot of the problems he had.”
It was about 30 years after the war among other veterans that Robert began to learn of his father’s experiences throughout the war and that fateful day on June 16, 1942, when he was so badly burnt.
“Lieutenant Donald Brown pulled dad out of the fire and said it was like ribbons of skin, all hanging off him all over the place,” Robert said.
“They said the skin was just burned off – he was black from the oil.
“One of the guys he was with died that night. They were only 17 or 18 years old.”
Darky was treated in Adelaide River before being transported to Heidelberg hospital in Victoria. He fell in love and had family before he died in 2002.
He was buried in Prospect Hill next to his youngest son, who died at just two years old.