102 year old Bill White recounts naval service
At 102, Bill White is the last surviving Australian veteran of the Battle of the Coral sea and a master of Morse code who even fought off malaria.
Sunshine Coast
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At Cotton Tree this Anzac day, hundreds turned out in the pouring rain to honour the sacrifice of those who came before.
Just one small figure, sitting quietly centre stage of the assembled veterans, stood out.
Bill White was the only local WW2 veteran left to attend the Maroochydore service.
At 102, the Navy veteran is the last Australian survivor of those who fought in the Battle of The Coral Sea.
When he rose to lay his wreath on the cenotaph, the crowd gave him a resounding round of applause.
Extremely active for his advanced age, Mr White was walking briskly back to the RSL Club after the service, “looking forward to a cold beer” he said.
Arthur William (Bill) White was born in Winchester in the Carramar District of Western Australia on June 16, 1922, the son of Arthur and Florence White.
He enlisted in 1939, three weeks after the war broke out at the age of 17 and served in the Navy for eight years.
“I couldn’t join the Air Force because I was underage, but the Navy would take me,” Mr White reminisced.
He was trained as a telegraphist on HMAS Cerberus.
Mr White said this involved Morse code and maintenance of the transmitting and receiving equipment.
“I did pride myself on my Morse code speed and skill,” he said.
In October 1940, Mr White joined the Royal Australian Navy Ship HMAS Hobart, under the command of Captain Harry Howden.
The Hobart was of the same type of light cruiser, the Leander Class, as the HMAS Perth and ill-fated HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all hands the next year in a vicious battle with disguised German cruiser Kormoran, which also sunk.
“The Sydney and Perth went down but only we survived on the Hobart,” Mr White said.
He explained a light cruiser’s role was to escort larger ships, like aircraft carriers or freighters, and protect them from enemy aircraft and ships with it’s quick firing main cannons and many anti-aircraft guns, while also being able to scout independently of a protective fleet.
Larger and able to take more punishment than the smaller and more numerous destroyers, light cruisers were still fast enough and maneuverable enough to be tricky targets for submarines and had hundreds of guns to stave off any enemy aircraft.
This, and their large communications rooms, meant they often became flagships for senior naval staff, able to keep the officers in charge safer than the slow battleships while still coordinating the fleet.
In January 1941, HMAS Hobart became the flagship of Rear Admiral, later Admiral Sir, John Crace of the Royal Navy commanding the Australian Squadron.
Mr White’s role as telegraphist meant he played a key role in receiving transmissions from the fleet and helping senior officers coordinate the movements of ships over vast distances.
“Without communications, the Navy was useless,” Mr White said.
After spending months patrolling Australian and New Zealand waters, the Hobart was assigned to the Mediterranean theatre and sailed for the Suez Canal in June 1941.
For five months, Mr White was involved in the thick of the fiercely fought battles in the Western Desert campaign.
In the spring of 1941, German Afrika Korps General Erwin Rommel had pushed all Allied forces back to Egypt, except for the “Rats of Tobruk” who defended the port under siege.
The Hobart sailed from Alexandria, Egypt as part of the Royal Navy’s 7th Cruiser Squadron, using her speed and armour to ferry troops.
Mr White was aboard when the Hobart took part in shore bombardment of the enemy surrounding Tobruk, while also fending off return fire.
They assisted in the defeat and withdrawal of Axis forces in Operation Crusader, although Rommel’s forces would return in early 1942.
The light cruiser also took part in massive displays of naval power, sweeps by the Royal Navy 1st Battle Squadron in company with venerable battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth, Barham and Valiant.
Mr White spoke of the power and presence these massive fortresses of steel commanded, crewed by thousands of men, and remembered witnessing the explosion and sinking of HMS Barham after being hit by a torpedo from German U-Boat U-331 and the frenzy the communications lines went into.
“I was always focused on the tasks at hand and was interested in what was happening around me,” Mr White said.
“Consequently, I thought little about these events from an anxiety perspective, and accordingly I maintained a good recollection of events, interaction between key personnel and the important historical communications from Fleet.”
The Hobart was a frequent target of attacks both out at sea and in port by enemy bombers, but Mr White said they got lucky and never took serious damage.
“We had a great leader but there is always that element of luck,” Mr White said.
Being close to the action on the bridge, Mr White said he witnessed significant loss of life.
Mr White said the Mediterranean campaign was intense but did come with an unexpected surprise from home.
Arthur White Senior had migrated to Australia from England in 1911 and enlisted in the AIF on 14 September 1914.
He was wounded in action in May 1915 and later became aide to General Sir Cyril Brudenall Bingham White (Lieutenant Colonel at the time) who became famous for the successful evacuation of Australian troops from Gallipoli.
A card reading “To Arthur, my loyal and faithful friend, signed CBBW” holds pride of place with Bill’s extended family.
As a veteran of both Gallipoli and the battles of the WWII.
“He reenlisted under a false name and age and wound up with a unit composed of mostly miners from Ballarat,” Mr White said.
His father’s unit was then posted to Alexandria and Mr White said seeing his father randomly on the opposite side of the world was a great surprise.
“Someone said to me, there’s a brother of yours here and I said, what do you mean?”
In February 1942, the Hobart arrived at Keppel Harbour in Singapore, just as troops were desperately holding back the advancing Japanese army.
“This was the day before they captured the port,” Mr White said.
He recalled the army throwing equipment into the sea to deny their use to the enemy and ships taking onboard anyone and anything they thought would be useful in the rush to withdraw.
“The soldiers were throwing rifles into the water and the Japanese were bombing us the whole time.”
He remembered the ship being low on fuel, only having restocked supplies and ammunition and having to make their way to Tanjong Priok in the Dutch East Indies.
On the way, he recalled rescuing a merchant ship, Norah Moller, which was being attacked by repeated waves of enemy aircraft.
“The wounded and dead included women and children, who we took aboard and buried the dead at sea,” he said.
The Java sea saw Hobart subjected to “relentless” attacks by the Japanese air forces.
“Toward the end of the month we were in Tanjong Priok fuelling alongside a tanker,” Mr White said.
“ I recall waving goodbye to our comrades on HMAS Perth as she sailed out the heads fully expecting to follow once fuelled.”
“But once again we came under heavy attack, to the extent that we were forced to break away from the tanker without completing the fuelling.”
“We consequently headed in the opposite direction seeking fuel and missed the Battle of Java Sea.”
The Battle of the Java sea saw the disastrous defeat of Allied naval forces in the region by the Imperial Japanese Navy, scuttling of the Dutch Navy, Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and sinking of the HMAS Perth.
“That was the very best and worst of luck,” he said.
The Hobart returned to Sydney for repairs and followed HMAS Australia to the historic Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval battle between aircraft carriers and was the first time in the war that a major Japanese advance had been fought off.
As part of the covering force for American aircraft carriers, Mr White witnessed relentless attacks by the Japanese naval aircraft, sinking multiple ships.
“The Japanese were better and braver pilots than the Germans and Italians,” he said.
“They flew right at us and stuck to their targets, giving us a hard time.”
Mr White is the last surviving veteran of this historic battle.
“We lost that battle, but turning the Japanese around there won us the war,” he said.
After the battle, Mr White’s posting on the Hobart ended and he returned to Sydney, arriving the day after the attack by miniature Japanese submarines on the harbour.
“It was a great shock and quite chaotic,” he said, recalling how the city reeled from the attacks.
He was then sent to Townsville and then Milne Bay to help improve wireless systems for the Navy on the islands Lai and Buna.
He spent approximately 12 months working there and spoke of the broad variety of jungle illnesses, malaria, dysentery, also having teeth removed and leg infections lanced without anaesthetic, all the time putting on the tough Anzac face in front of the American medics.
“I returned to HMAS Cerberus to commence a promotional course only to be struck down with the ‘Big Fella’ - Malignant Malaria,” Mr White said.
“It must have been a close run thing because they flew my sister over from Perth.”
Malignant Malaria is among the most severe human infectious diseases and very often fatal.
Following his recovery he went to Sydney to commission HMAS Wallaroo and conducted the maiden voyage to Fremantle.
“On the morning of 11 June 1943 I was admitted to sick bay, the Wallaroo sailed at midday only to collide and sink later that night,” he said.
The rest of Mr White’s service was “not that interesting as they kicked me out after the malaria”.
We left Mr White with a cold beer at the Maroochydore RSL, surrounded by friends.
Mr White is a humble and genuine man, who sees himself as having done his duty.
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