Ol'Harry

WW II CORPSMAN HAS STRONG CONNECTIONS TO GUILFORD COLLEGE AND COMMUNITY

James Campbell “J.C.” White entered Guilford College three times: in 1942 after graduating from Curry School; in 1946 following World War II; in 1950 after care-giving his parents through a seize of illnesses. 

Pragmatic beyond his 92 years, “After one year in college, I knew the draft board would be coming for me, so I went to them first.  It was Army-Navy alphabetically, so the W’s went Navy.  One year of pre-med at Guilford placed me in Navy Hospital Corps School.  One autopsy took all plans of medical school off my plate.”

He worked for the Postal Service after dropping out of college to take care of his parents.  “That was a great job, paid well and gave me time to help with my parents.”  It also gave him time and resources to invest in rural family land that was becoming less rural by the moment – it was near the intersection of Friendly Road and Dolley Madison Road.

His third enrollment at Guilford College was more typical – he graduated in 1952 with a degree in history.  He was already aligned with Greensboro history – he was delivered by Dr. Wesley Long. 

In the war zone, it took White a while to find his LST-456 duty station.  “The Navy flew replacement crewmen to their ships wherever they were posted.  Before my ship could be located, dysentery and dengue fever put me in a Brisbane, Australia sick bay.

J. C. WHITE AND FIRST COUSIN DURING WW II

That wasn’t bad duty – major league baseball stars, Phil Rizutto and Johnny Mize were there.  Rizutto’s bunk was next to mine.  When I left for New Guinea, he asked me to send him back some guineas.  Another memory – Rizutto received more letters from more women than anyone I ever knew!”

White caught up with LST-456 in the New Guinea theater, but did not follow through on his bunk-mate’s request.

WHITE'S LST-456 WAS ACTIVE IN PACIFIC THEATER 

As the junior corpsmen aboard ship, he spent much of his time giving shots.  “I know some of those shots were quite painful.  I don’t think I could do that now, at my age.”

With editorial license, I find that strange – As a sea-going Marine 60 years ago, corpsmen uniformly assured me, “This shot won’t hurt a bit!”

White recalls one sailor who wanted to choose his own doctor, “We were off the coast of Borneo.  I was the only corpsman on the ship when two crew-members got in a fight.  One suffered a split scalp but didn’t trust me to fix it.  ‘That’s fine with me, I told him -- go ahead and bleed to death – it’s your call.’ 

He changed his mind and I sutured him up, but he complained afterwards that my stitching left his bald head looking just like the lacing on a baseball.  I told him to grow lots of hair and no one would notice.”

White added, “We had a doctor aboard for a short while – he was a pediatrician – I never could figure that out!”

LST-456 earned eight combat campaign stars during the war, several of them after White came aboard.  He became a golden shellback when his troop carrier crossed both the Equator and International Date Line.

LST-456 EXTRACT SURRENDERED JAPANESE FROM LUZON 

He has indelible memories from the Philippines, “We beached our ship on Luzon to take on Japanese troops as prisoners of war.  A Japanese major went ashore with a bullhorn to coax them out of the jungle and to surrender their arms.”

He well remembers the day the war ended, “We were below deck watching Gone With the Wind for the umpteenth time.  Anti-aircraft guns started firing from all over the place, and the announcement came over the PA system, ‘The war is over.’ “

Memories were also made after sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge, “ Welcome Home, Boys had been painted on the Alcatraz water tank.”

Even then, he wasn’t home free, “Several of us weren’t paying attention and got on the wrong train in Chicago.  The conductor was going to kick us off, but three women passengers talked him out of it.  We got to Atlanta, where we caught another train to Greensboro.”

White traces his Quaker heritage back to Cane Creek’s Simon Dixon.  Late in life, he married Winifred Lincoln, an Englishwoman and daughter of a British engineer working in the U.S.  She had a son and daughter.  Winifred White died in 2014.

The son has also passed away, but his step-daughter, Joan, is around to dote on White, “She is the daughter I never had.” 

J. C. WHITE AND BOB BENBOW -- WW II LST SAILORS IN DIFFERENT THEATERS
BUT TOGETHER AT FRIENDS HOME -- GUILFORD

White spent most of his working career with Dillard Paper Company, “I couldn’t have chosen a better place to work.”  His venture into real estate is a stand-alone story.  Parcels of his land were once owned by a Payne family.  They had a daughter named Dolley.