Commander Denis White RIP

Kyt · Nov 28, 2007

Tirpitz raid pilot who helped to preserve the FAA's heritage

Commander Denis White obituary - Times Online

As the development director and then from 1976 the director of the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, Denis White made an important contribution to preserving the history of British naval aviation, a war-fighting capability largely invented by the British, with the Royal Navy maintaining a prominent role in such subsequent innovations as athwartships arrester wires, the steam catapult, angled deck, mirror sight and Harrier ski jump. The Yeovilton site is now the third-largest aviation collection in UK; is Europe's largest naval aviation museum and one of only three such in the world.

Denis White joined the Navy as a sub-lieutenant RNVR and learnt to fly in the US at Pensacola in 1941. On April 2, 1944, flying an American Wildcat off the escort carrier Fencer, White was one of 40 fighters providing top cover for dive-bombing attacks by Barracuda aircraft on the German battleship Tirpitz which was holed up in a Norwegian fiord. Tirpitz, an ever-present threat to Allied convoys to Russia, was repeatedly attacked and on this occasion the damage kept her inactive for a further three months.

White's war service also included convoys to Murmansk, flying cover for Swordfish anti-submarine aircraft and strikes against enemy shipping in Norwegian waters. After the war he transferred to a permanent commission in the Royal Navy and became a qualified flying instructor and a deck landing control officer (“batsman”) in the carrier Colossus. Latterly he was naval attaché at Addis Ababa and in his final tour worked for Nato at Kiel.

A flair for public relations caused him to be recruited as development director for the FAA museum, then consisting of one hangar and about 30 aeroplanes, mostly parked out in the rain. Senior officers with influence and acquaintances in business supported a fundraising programme that more than tripled the covered space and instituted many exhibitions.

As a civilian White competed in 1976 for the post of director of this increasingly professional organisation and was successful. A restaurant was opened in 1983 at the same time as an important commemoration of the Falklands conflict, an apotheosis of postwar naval aviation.

In 1980 White successfully negotiated the acquisition of Concorde 002, a development aircraft and the first to be built at Bristol. When it arrived, White was at the end of the runway with his “bats”. White was appointed OBE on leaving the museum in 1987.

He is survived by his wife and the three sons and daughter of his first marriage, which was dissolved.

Commander Denis White, OBE, naval aviator and director of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, was born on February 2, 1923. He died on November 2, 2007, aged 84
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Kyt · Nov 28, 2007

On April 2, 1944, flying an American Wildcat off the escort carrier Fencer, White was one of 40 fighters providing top cover for dive-bombing attacks by Barracuda aircraft on the German battleship Tirpitz
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Tirpitz - The History - Operation "Tungsten"

Antipodean Andy · Nov 28, 2007

A man whose service did not end once he entered civvie life. RIP. Golly we're losing some good people.

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Commander Denis White RIP

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