James H. "Jim" White, Warrant Officer RAAF
 

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

Another airman
 

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.

Cruel war over Norway
 

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.

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.

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.

pics
 

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 .

pics
 

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

The first sepia picture of Champlain.....
 

....was taken at Nepean point in Ottawa...... overlooking the Ottawa river...

Thanks
 

Few more pics from Jim's old album. Snow, looks like Canada somewhere !

more
 

Bob Baynes & Jim, Shropshire 1943

pics
 

.........................................

more
 

Think this is Sheperds Grove airfield UK

I read the license plate on the propellor driven snowcraft in the first photo as being from Manitoba.
WRT the second photo - According to a bit of web snooping (starting with wiki, then http://pastforward.winnipeg.ca/digit...erman/id/2367/) RCAF No. 2 Manning Depot was located on the fairgrounds at 1010 Victoria Avenue, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, R7A 1A9. Based on the address, this might be the present Brandon Armoury but details of the buildings don't match in photos. On the other hand, quite a bit could have changed during renovations/repairs over the years. (there are also references to No. 2 Manning Depot being in St Jean, Quebec however I think this may have been a 50s-60s location.)

4th photo - CPR Docks Vancouver are no longer working docks. The caption on the photo at https://www.flickr.com/photos/37908073@N04/3842903702 ststes they've been taken over by Canada place and the Convention Center https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ca...4d-123.1111209

Hi Grant.

The photo with the snow machines was taken at the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg. Those are the main floor windows and parking like that used to be on the north side of the building, facing Broadway Avenue. Just off image to the left was Osborne Street and the old Labatts Brewery and Beer Store.

The No. 2 Manning Depot in Brandon was in the old Livestock Building from the Brandon Fair. Converted to human occupants during the war, it became the post war hockey arena for the Brandon Wheat Kings. It was located just down the street from the Brandon Armoury but was torn down a few years ago to make a parking lot for the Brandon Police HQ.

David

I did wonder about the police building area, about the same address but Victoria Sreet East as opposed to plain Victoria Street. Neither area shows evidence of a fairground, and fairgrounds are usually on the edge of town...
I'm pretty sure other Manning Depots were also frequently the fair livestock buildings. They were large, usually only used seasonally and I'm sure a lot of the recruits felt they were being herded like the former occupants of the buildings.
The legislative buildings make sense. Cut stone construction wasn't usually the choice for cheap, fast builds....

Being a font of totally useless information, I know that the Manitoba legislative building was constructed the on the site of the original wooden Fort Osborne, the location of the Permanent Force garrison in Winnipeg and HQ of Military District 10. When the fort was torn down and the garrison moved to the new Fort Osborne Barracks in Tuxedo Park, the legislature was built where it once stood. Hence, Osborne Street.

No 1 Manning Depot in Toronto was located in the aromatic Equine Building of the Canadian National Exhibition. Recruits were allocated four to a stall.

Cheers,
Dan.

Jim who?
 

Hello Mike,

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

White
 

Hanno
James White , he was a Warrant officer which I think was the rank between a F/sergeant and a Pilot Officer ? We had a look on the NAA website but his service records have not been released yet. Think you can pay the NAA a fee and they upload the records.

The post card with the names in red, I think these guys were the trainee pilots onboard the ship that went to Canada with Jim. SFTS = Secondary Flying Training School

more
 

Lineup of JU88 ? aircraft was taken just after the war , think Jim went over to have a look around but I will ask Phil for more info. Primary school Neerim South. And Harvards ?

Jim
 

What a great series of photos and stories. The German aircraft look like Ju188, a development of the Ju88.

It was a fairly common exercise for Australian pilots and navigators (observers) to be sent to Canada for their SFTS which stands for Service Flying Training School.

Thanks for sharing these Mike.

Thanks Mike,

I have changed the title of this thread to his name as a little trubute to the man and his deeds. Also merged with an earlier thread of you. Hope that's alright with you. Thanks for sharing this story.

Details
 

The photo outside a Nissan hut looks like it might have been at his Elementary Flying Training School in Australia. The Harvard/Yale data sheet would indicate that at his SFTS in Canada he was being streamed for single engine aircraft, but on arrival in the UK many of those were reclassified for multi engine training which was likely where the demand was.

Wartime Photographs
 

No that photo was not taken in Ottawa as the Nepean Point statue holds an upsidedown astrolobe.

Yale
 

Ok yes that all adds up with what the photos are describing . Never heard of a YALE aircraft ? Was it a Canadian design ? OK found this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_NA-64_Yale

Yale
 

One of the identical twin Payne brothers, John and Alf who became Spitfire pilots both trained in Canada on Harvards and Yales, it was a crash in a Yale ("I rolled it up into a ball") which made it easy to distinguish one from the other after Alf had a front tooth broken.