James H. "Jim" White, Warrant Officer RAAF

[Mike K]

I know a local chap here . His dad was a RAAF pilot in WW2 and he has a lot of interesting pics taken by his dad , some taken during actual operations . He flew Stirling bombers mostly and was considered a top pilot , he was even involved in the moonlight dropping of agents into occupied Europe and glider towing . He came back from the war a somewhat damaged individual, like so many others . As his tour ended, his crew got a new pilot , sadly the whole crew were killed when the plane crashed . Mike

[Mike K]

I sometimes spotted the old chap who lived over the road here as drove out of his place . He died around 10 years back. Anyway his daughter was telling me he was a navigator in the RAAF . She said, he was with a RAF squadron in India flying in Liberators . We looked it up and it was 355 RAF squadron . There is a pic of him in the AWM archives with his mates at the airfield in India ! The squadron was bombing the Thai Burma railway among other things.

[Mike K]

I was speaking to my friend in town yesterday , this chap's dad was a local Gippsland lad who joined the RAAF , he became Stirling pilot in we think 299 squadron , I posted the pics somewhere on this forum . Phil was telling me his dad had flown missions to drop SOE agents into Norway , on one trip the poor SOE guy lost his nerve and wanted to return back to the UK. . As they were circling the drop zone , the crew opened the door and pushed the chap out ! Going by the markings on his Stirling we think this is the unit http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/batt_299.htm Jim towed a Horsa over to the Market Garden operation.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Mike, what a cruel story, having to bump out a fellow soldier to do his job. Possibly never made it back? Shows that even SOE guys were humans after all and scared shitless of their job.

[Dan Martel]

General question about the Stirling Mk IV, the paratroop and glider-tug version. From what I've read the Mk IV fleet consisted of converted Bomber versions and newly built off the assembly line. What I can't seem to find out is, if when being converted or from the factory, was a door provided for the paratroops to exit from or did they jump from a hole in the floor? And how many paratroops could the aircraft carry?

Thanks,
Dan.

[Mike K]

Yes Dan , I think the Special ops Stirlings had a rear exit for the parachutists probably done at the factory .

Jim grew up in Neerim South and did a apprentiship as a slaughterman before the war. He barely survived the 1939 black Friday bushfire holocaust, he drove his car into the Latrobe river .

[Mike K]

Few more pics. We think he did some training in Canada as we have a few pics from there. The group of paras are meeting their assigned aircrew , this was done for morale reasons. We believe most of Jim's original crew were killed in a post war mission to Europe when the Stirling they were assigned to ( not Jim ) crashed. We discovered that Jim's particular Stirling he flew ( EASY AS EVER ) survived the war and was sold off for scrap around 1947

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

Jim grew up in Neerim South and did a apprentiship as a slaughterman before the war. He barely survived the 1939 black Friday bushfire holocaust, he drove his car into the Latrobe river .

Hello Mike,

What was Jim's full name, rank, unit etc.?