Sir Thomas Walter White (26 April 188813 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.
White began his parliamentary career in 1929 when he was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Balaclava in Victoria. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons's United Australia Party government from 1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons's inner cabinet. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War and saw service in Australia and the United Kingdom. Returning to parliament as a member of the newly formed Liberal Party in 1945, he served as Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation in Robert Menzies's government from 1949 to 1951. His term coincided with the commitment of RAAF squadrons to the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency. Australia's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1951 to 1956, White was knighted in 1952 and died in 1957.
Early life
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 () of Victoria. Educated at Moreland State School, White joined the Citizen Forces as a trumpeter in 1902. He served in artillery and engineering units for the next eight years. In January 1911 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 5th Australian Regiment. He was promoted to lieutenant in June 1912, and to captain in November 1913.
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). He was later described by a biographer as "pugnacious and impatient for success, with a disdain for authority and a suspicion of elites". 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." 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. The Australian Aero Club held its inaugural meeting at Point Cook in October; White was the club's first secretary. The following month, he graduated from his flying course with his fellow students, who included the future Chief of the Air Staff, Richard Williams.
In April 1915, White was appointed a captain in the Australian Imperial Force and adjutant of the Mesopotamian Half Flight, the first AFC unit to see active service. Based initially in Basra on the Shatt-el-Arab waterway and operating primitive Maurice Farman biplanes, the Half Flight assisted the Indian Army during the Mesopotamian campaign, conducting reconnaissance and sabotage missions against Turkish forces. The Farmans' top speed was only , and the desert wind could reach meaning the aircraft often made no headway or were simply blown backwards.
White carried out several reconnaissance and bombing operations behind enemy lines. 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 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. White himself touted the feat as "a taxi-ing record". 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.