Lieutenant-Colonel G.W. White
5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
12th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps

… continuous active operations almost always in contact with the enemy. He has done outstanding work for units and has made himself an excellent Staff Captain through his energy, resource and unruffled temperament. He refused to go sick in spite of ill-health during the Dec/Jan operations, when his determination kept him at duty.

(M.B.E. recommendation, 8 July 1941)

Born on 6 July 1912 in Farnham, Surrey, Gilbert William White was a cricket player and commissioned in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps since completing Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1933. Following prewar service in Palestine fighting the Arab Revolt, White was posted to the newly formed 7th Armoured Division in 1940 as a staff officer. For “his energy, resource and unruffled temperament” during the Western Desert campaign, he was made Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in July 1941.

White subsequently served as deputy assistant quarter-master for 7th Division and assistant adjutant and quarter-master for 1st Armoured Division until August 1943. In Sicily, he succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel R.B. James of the 5th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment. By November, the battalion was back in the United Kingdom as the 50th Division had been withdrawn from the Mediterranean to prepare for the invasion of France.

After ten months in command, on 6 June 1944, White went ashore at Gold Beach. The battalion headquarters carrier sunk with all maps and documents. The CO was wounded within hours and needed to be evacuated. He was soon replaced by his predecessor Lieutenant-Colonel R.B. James, who commanded the 5th East Yorks until he was killed in action on 3 August.

After recovery, from March 1945 to the end of the war, White commanded the 12th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the 8th Armoured Brigade. He was later an instructor at the Camberley Staff College and then commanded the 2nd Parachute Regiment from 1948 to 1952. For two years he was military attaché with the British Joint Service Mission in Washington DC. White retired from the army as a brigadier in 1961.

He would later move to La Plaine, Saint Patrick, Dominica where he died on 14 October 1977.