Sergeant Arthur Nathaniel Edward WHITE (1386049)
No. 23 Operational Training Unit, Royal Air Force

Date of birth: 8th December 1922
Date of death: 12th February 1943

Killed on active service aged 20
Buried at Oswestry General Cemetery Section T Grave 2
He was born in Kenya on the 8th of December 1922 the son of Captain Edward White of Chipdene, Swingfield in Kent, manager of breeding kennels and road house.

He was educated at Beachborough Park, Folkestone and at the King's School Canterbury from September 1936 to March 1941 where he was in Meister Omers. He was a monitor and played in the Hockey XI becoming Hon Secretary. On leaving school, he went on to Hertford College Oxford on an RAF university cadetship.

He enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve where he qualified as a pilot and rose to the rank of Sergeant.

Arthur White and his crew took off from RAF Pershore at 8pm on the 12th of February 1943 in Wellington Mk III X3608 for a night training flight. The aircraft was equipped with IFF, a F24 camera, a photoflash and a single flame float. The crew was forced to abandon the aircraft due to heavy icing, thought to have been caused by flying in low cumulus clouds. Arthur White ordered his crew out to bale out but, being the last man to leave the aircraft, his parachute did not have time to deploy and he was killed. The aircraft crashed at 10.03pm, one mile to the north of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, to the west of Oswestry.

The crew members who survived were: -

Sergeant John Theo Backsimchuk RCAF (Navigator) (slightly injured)
Sergeant George Laurence Sinclair RCAF (Air Bomber)
Sergeant Frank George Leahy (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner) (Killed in action 31st of March 1944)
Sergeant Douglas Michael Labelle RCAF (Air Gunner)


Meister Omers

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