Anzac Day 2011

Today I spent the day with all of my siblings and a rediscovered relative in my hometown, Brookton for the Anzac memorial service.

The Anzac service is a memorial to the troops who landed on the Gallipoli peninsular on April the 25th 1915.

Much has been said and written about that day and the memorial services, but it's worth repeating that the day is a tribute to all the sacrifice that ensured our freedom to live the way we do in Australia and New Zealand.

Today the address was given by this long lost cousin and myself from letters her grandfather wrote from Europe in 1940-41. The content of those letters tells the story that would be typical of the experiences and reflections from those days of intense military engagement. Ben's letters also tell much,  much more and are reflections that are repeated worldwide on April the 25th.

A Tribute To Frederick ‘Ben’ White.

SGT. FREDRICK BENJAMIN WHITE known to all as Ben.

From the many letters that have been found we have pieced together Ben’s short life. As a tribute to Ben we would like to share some of his story with you all this morning.

Ben was born into one of Brookton Pioneer Families on 12 November 1912, son of William Benjamin Harris and Elizabeth White.

Ben grew up on his parents farm “Merkine” in Brookton with his sister Kathy ( later Rose) and brothers Eric, Victor, Frank and Lance.

Ben left Australian shores in 1938 sailing to England to join the RAF he arrived there on 9th February 1939 enlisting on 23 February.

He was based in England but spent some time in France during 1940. He was also involved in the Dunkirk evacuation as told in one of his letters.

He was part of Bomber Command as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, and flew in the Stirling  bombers. He volunteered or had been selected to undergo pilot training just before he died.

The details of Bens last flight……. 24 March 1941, 7 Squadron, no 3 Group, Bomber Command, the aircraft was returning from Operations over Calais France, they had copped some Flak damage and was attempting a forced landing in Suffolk. Ben was the only crew member to survive the accident but later died from his injuries on 30 March 1941, he was 28. Ben left behind a 5 ½ year old daughter.

He was buried in full military honours and laid to rest in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Woking, Surrey, England.

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS THAT BEN WROTE HOME TO VARIOUS MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY.

Bens account of the Dunkirk extraction

Thank God is all I can say, for nothing but his help has brought me out of Belgium. From that terrific inferno in which I was cut off from the Squadron and had to walk and stumble to the coast, where we were picked up from the beach north of Dunkirk by a fishing boat and brought back to good old Blighty. How pleased I was to see English boats awaiting us can never be told. The enemy was continuously bombing and machine gunning the beach where thousands of English troops lay hidden among the sand dunes awaiting boats for England.

But with the grand old country just across the water we treated his efforts with a certain amount of contempt. For now I am almost proof against shell, bomb and anti-aircraft fire, although we had to wade out into the water which was thick with black oil from sunken boats, up to the waist. It was really amazing to see the smile of the Tommies as they clambered aboard the small rowing boats which were to take them to the Channel boats standing out to sea. Although I never bothered about looking back from Dover when we arrived I was told that the illumination could be seen from there.

I came back with what I stood in and since have been refitted with new clothes uniforms etc and as I sit here on this peaceful Sunday afternoon it is extremely difficult to realise we have come through such a raining hell since last Sunday.

Written 24 February 1941

My last letter gave you an account of my Dunkirk affair and the fighting that I was unhappily involved in over France, Belgium and Germany. We still go over there but this time with machines of a bigger better and faster type and it is all night flying and many things are in our favour under the cover of dark . This war will see me out, all of my pals but two have gone and myself, plus one a prisoner in Germany and one here in England are the balance of my course of 24 that is left.

Although I have only shot down one enemy machine which was over Flanders a Heinkel lll and damaged another, my chances now are nil for flying in heavy bombers. We do not go looking for bother, other than getting to our target, dropping our cargo and getting back to base, sometimes 800 miles away. Although the sky is alive with bursting anti air craft shells, tracer and light flak we have only been hit twice but got back OK. These patches of gun fire are the  most fascinating things imaginable by night but accurate stuff is quite unhealthy.

THE LETTER GOES ON ABOUT OTHER THINGS THEN HE RECALLS THE FOLLOWING STORY:

When sheltering in a building from heavy bombing in Belgium a wounded woman put a bloody bundle into my arms. It was her child of about 3 years of age, the kiddy died a few minutes after and I still have the vest covered in the blood of this child which had soaked through my uniform. I never saw the mother again for they took her away and we lay the body of the child down in the shop where we had to leave it and take more cover. I have seen 42 dead women, children and aged men lying on the side of the road where they were machine gunned by low flying enemy planes in Flanders and we were defenceless without machines to fly.

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE DATED JANUARY 1940

In Ben’s time off away from the madness of war he found a moment to reflect and so he has written to his sister Kathy. This is an extract from the letter.

Yesterday was very crisply clear and the sky being heavy in cloud. In the afternoon with nothing else to do I rugged up the old system, applied my knee boots and hiked out across the snow. In places one had to flounder through drift but there was something beautifully simple about it all. Miles of snow covered countryside, wonderfully crisp, keen freezing atmosphere and the crunching of snow beneath the feet to relieve the eerie stillness. 

Being alone away from it all, the world about which I gazed appeared serenely beautiful and it was difficult to believe that but a few miles away people were being mutilated by the modern machines of scientific warfare. The love of the great open spaces is part of my Australian heritage and although totally different to the geographical features of our own land, stillness or quiet is much the same all over the world. I could write a book about eerie stillness but guess people would not appreciate my distorted 

views upon life.

Cheerio write soon

your brother the same Ben

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXTRACT FROM A NEWSPAPER CLIPPING WRITTEN SOON AFTER BENS DEATH.

TITLED - MR SLEEPS TRIBUTE TO DEAD AIRMAN 

In a city office during the week a photograph was pulled off the wall, and its gold frame removed. In place a neat black frame was set around the handsome boyish face that smiled out of the picture. It was the photo of the late Ben White, whose death while serving with the RAF was announced in the cables. Before the whirr of wings and the call of the air beckoned Ben White, he was a well known private detective on Alf Sleeps staff and in a letter to the mirror his former boss and friend pays a tribute to the Airman.

“Danger, Ben White may have heard that word but he didn’t know what it meant. If there was a risk to be taken, Ben wanted to take it. Our business association developed into friendship but I realized Ben wouldn’t be with me long.

Instead of court petitions his ears were buzzing with the roar of propellers. His feet were on the ground but his mind was way beyond the clouds. As we shook hands on the steps of McNeil Chambers I wondered if I’d ever see this dashing, handsome, ambitious boy again.

He gave me his photo before he sailed for England and a glorious death. But I think Ben White went out the way he’d have wanted to, doing his job and loving the spice of danger in it. If I remember Ben, I’ll wager there was a smile on his face as he went.

I’d like to pay tribute to one of the gamest little chaps and best friends it has been my fortune to meet. His Perth Pals salute Ben for a job well done.”

From Ben’s letters the extended White family have come to know what type of person he was, an adventurer, a writer and down to earth Aussie bloke. We are all sorry that he died too soon and most of us never had the privilege to meet him.

Lest We Forget.

With thanks to Anne Stedman for researching and compiling this address.