Sir Thomas Walter White, KBE, DFC, VD (26 April 1888 – 13 October 1957) was an Australian politician and pilot in the First World War. In 1914 he became one of the first airmen trained for the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), and the following year he was among the first AFC members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the Mesopotamian Half Flight. After carrying out several missions behind Turkish lines, he was captured in November 1915 but escaped in July 1918. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He married Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin, in 1920.
Thomas Walter White was born on 26 April 1888 at Hotham, North Melbourne. He was the son of Charles James White, a brass-finisher from England, and Emily Jane (née Jenkins) of Victoria.[1] Educated at Moreland State School, White joined the Citizen Forces as a trumpeter in 1902.[1][2] He served in artillery and engineering units for the next eight years.[3] In January 1911 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 5th Australian Regiment.[1][4] He was promoted to lieutenant in June 1912, and to captain in November 1913.[4]
First World War
In August 1914, two weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, White became one of the first four students to begin training at Point Cook as a pilot in the Australian Flying Corps (AFC).[1][5] He was later described by a biographer as "pugnacious and impatient for success, with a disdain for authority and a suspicion of elites".[6] White recalled flying in the school's Bristol Boxkite: "The senses took the place of the instruments. One's eyes and ears did duty as engine counters; the rush of the air in the face told whether the climb or glide was at the right angle."[7] In September he crashed the Boxkite into Point Cook's hangar while attempting to land in a crosswind; the dent he made was never repaired, and came to be recognised as part of the base's history.[8] The Australian Aero Club held its inaugural meeting at Point Cook in October; White was the club's first secretary.[9] The following month, he graduated from his flying course with his fellow students, who included the future Chief of the Air Staff, Richard Williams.[10]
Captain White (second left) with Captain Henry Petre (far left) and Lieutenant George Merz (far right) of the Mesopotamian Half Flight at Basra, July 1915
White carried out several reconnaissance and bombing operations behind enemy lines.[1][13] On a mission in October 1915, he was forced to land owing to engine trouble and, rather than risk attempting repairs, taxied the aircraft some twenty-four kilometres (fifteen miles) past enemy troops while his observer, Captain Francis Yeats-Brown, kept watch with his rifle at the ready; the "Keystone Cops adventure", as historian Alan Stephens described it, culminated in the engine finally powering up and allowing White to take off and fly to the safety of the Australian base.[14][15] White himself touted the feat as "a taxi-ing record".[16] The following month, he undertook a search for Major General George Kemball, whose seaplane had gone missing between Kut and Aziziyeh; White located the missing plane near a large Arab encampment, and despite being fired on by the tribesmen was able to rescue the general and transport him to Aziziyeh.[17]
On 13 November 1915, White was captured on a mission to cut telegraph wires near Baghdad. After damaging their aircraft on landing, White and Yeats-Brown were fired on by Arabs and Turks; Yeats-Brown succeeded in destroying the wires while White held off their attackers with rifle fire. The men attempted to taxi their aircraft away but were overpowered and beaten by Arabs before being handed over to Turkish troops.[14][18] White was mentioned in despatches in July 1916.[19] He was initially imprisoned in Mosul, then in Afion Kara Hissar, enduring harsh conditions. In July 1918 he was being transported by rail to Constantinople when his train was wrecked and he escaped. Disguising himself as a Turk, he hid in a Ukrainian cargo ship berthed in Constantinople harbour. After a month the ship sailed for Odessa, where White remained another month using a fake Russian passport.[20] His experience of the Soviets in Odessa helped inform his subsequent anti-communism.[1] He then stowed away on a hospital ship bound for Bulgaria, and made his way to London in December.[1][20] White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in June 1919.[21] That December, he was again mentioned in despatches, for "valuable services whilst in captivity".[22] He subsequently published an account of his wartime exploits as Guests of the Unspeakable.[1][23]
Early parliamentary career
While in London, White met Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, and soon became engaged to her. Departing Britain in September 1919, White returned to Australia via the United States and was discharged from the AIF in January 1920. He married Vera on 22 March at St John's Church of England in Toorak, despite the opposition of some of the Deakin family, including her brother-in-law Herbert Brookes.[1][24] White, whose sympathies tended towards small business, considered Brookes a "business bully", hiding behind "the protection of capital".[1] Also in 1920, White became managing director of his father's hardware company, C. J. White & Sons Pty Ltd.[1] He continued to serve in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF, the renamed Citizen Forces),[1][25] receiving promotion to major in July 1922, and commanding the 6th Battalion as a lieutenant colonel from March 1926 to March 1931.[4] In 1923 he was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers' Decoration, which recognised twenty years of service.[26][27] White enlisted as a special constable when Victorian police went on strike in November that year; he would later express support for groups such as the New Guard.[1][28]
The October 1937 federal elections saw White returned by a margin of 20,954.[36] In July 1938, he represented Australia at an inter-governmental conference on Jewish refugees held at Évian, France, to discuss the growing numbers of Jewish emigrants seeking to leave Germany and occupied territories.[1] He sympathised with refugees he spoke to during the conference, but he hedged his offer of support: "As we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration."[1][37] Australia agreed to accept 15,000 refugees over three years.[38] White's reaction to the Australian government's support for the Munich Agreement was to diarise: "I think we should hang our heads that we did not stand up to the bully of Europe... It may yet mean peace but at what price?"[39] He called for stronger preparations at home in case of war, including the introduction of conscription.[1][40] On 8November 1938, White resigned his portfolio, having discovered that Lyons had established an inner cabinet from which he was excluded; he was succeeded as Minister for Trade and Customs by John Perkins.[1][41] Lyons's response in parliament to White's resignation publicly highlighted the divisions in the UAP.[42] White stood for the UAP's leadership after Lyons's death the following year, but was eliminated early in the balloting; Robert Menzies narrowly defeated Billy Hughes in the final ballot.[1][43]
Second World War and later parliamentary career
Wing Commander White (right) serving with the RAAF in Great Britain, March 1942
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, White transferred from the CMF to the Citizen Air Force, the active reserve of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF),[1][44] as a flight lieutenant (temporary squadron leader). He took leave from parliament in April 1940 and was appointed the inaugural commanding officer of No.1 Initial Training School (ITS) at Somers, Victoria.[1][45] In this capacity he was responsible for the first group of Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) trainees in Australia, thirty-five student aircrew.[45] In the September 1940 federal election, White defeated Labor's Charles Sandford with 43,876 votes to 17,135.[46] He relinquished command of No.1 ITS in September 1941; at this time the school had more than nine hundred pupils.[47] White was subsequently posted to England, initially to oversee the Australian contingent at RAF Station Bournemouth.[1][48] Arriving at Bournemouth as a wing commander in November 1941, he proceeded to organise EATS graduates from Australia into their own distinct section under the RAF's No.3 Personnel Reception Centre. He also facilitated improvements in accommodation, services, and postings for the Australians at Bournemouth.[49] In June 1942, he became RAAF Liaison Officer at RAF Flying Training Command, where he worked to improve procedures for commissioning and promoting Australian airmen.[50]
By May 1943, the Australian contingent at Bournemouth had outgrown its facilities and transferred to Brighton, where White was given command of the RAF station.[51] According to the Parliamentary Library of Australia, White also "surreptitiously flew on several sorties as a second-pilot" while in Britain.[52] He paid tribute to the men of EATS with the narrative poem Sky Saga.[1] White returned to Australia to contest the August 1943 federal election, defeating Labor's John Barry with 38,698 votes to 28,271.[53][54] He served at the RAAF Staff School, located at Mount Martha, Victoria, until his retirement as an honorary group captain;[1][55] he was medically discharged on 28 October 1944.[56][57] The same month, he attended the conference that resulted in the establishment of the Liberal Party, which succeeded the UAP; the new party was officially launched under Robert Menzies's leadership in August 1945.[1][58] In June 1946, now as the Liberal member for Balaclava, White unsuccessfully called for a royal commission into problems of command in the RAAF during the war.[59] He retained Balaclava by a majority of over 13,000 in the September 1946 federal election, defeating Labor's Maurice Ashkanasy.[54][60]
The T. W. White Society, founded in 1982, sponsors an annual prize for thoracic research awarded through the Thoracic Society of Queensland.[80] White's daughters donated his papers to the National Library of Australia in 1997 and 1998.[81]
^White, Thomas Walter (1928). Guests of the Unspeakable: The Odyssey of an Australian Airman – Being a Record of Captivity and Escape in Turkey. London: John Hamilton. ISBN1-86315-000-5.
^Dennis, P., Grey, J., Morris, E., Prior, R., & Bou, J. (2008). "Army, Titles of". The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 July 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Who's who in the elections". The Age. Melbourne. 10 August 1943. p. 3. Retrieved 1 April 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
^ ab"Full list of today's candidates". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney. 28 September 1946. p. 2. Retrieved 1 April 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
Martin, A. W. (1999). Robert Menzies: A Life – Volume II: 1944–1978. Carlton South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. ISBN1-59740-670-8.
Molkentin, Michael (2010). Fire in the Sky: The Australian Flying Corps in the First World War. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. ISBN978-1-74237-072-9.
Brenchley, Fred; Brenchley, Elizabeth (2004). White's Flight: An Australian Pilot's Epic Escape From Turkish Prison Camp to Russia's Revolution. Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-1-74031-100-7.
White, T. W. (Thomas Walter), Sir (1990). Guests of the Unspeakable: The Odyssey of an Australian Airman – Being a Record of Captivity and Escape in Turkey. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Little Hills Press. ISBN978-1-86315-000-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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