John Warner White

John Warner White (1921–2010) was an American Army Air Forces Major who completed fifty bombing missions in 1943 in the Allies' Tunisian, Sicilian, and Italian Campaigns of World War II. As a first lieutenant in the 487th Bombardment Squadron, he flew many raids as lead bombardier facing enemy fighter aircraft and concentrated anti-aircraft fire which caused frequent casualties. Decades after the war's end, White published a personal narrative about his wartime experiences entitled "Tuff Stuffː Memoirs of John Warner White". The title Tuff Stuff refers to the name given to the B–25 bomber flown by White's six-man crew. The information below draws heavily on White's account of what he experienced from 1941 to 1944.

Early life White was born into a prosperous and well-connected family in Nashville, Tennessee, where a major public park is named for his grandfather Percy Warner. His uncle, Luke Lea, was a US Senator from Tennessee. but moved to Nashville when the Civil War broke out. A news photographer snapped a picture of White being interviewed by the recruiting officer, published in the Tennessean the following day. After receiving his commission as a Second Lieutenant, he was sent to South Carolina where men of different Air Corps specialties were put together to form bomber crews. A crew typically consisted of a pilot, a co-pilot, and a bombardier/navigator, who were officers, and two gunners and a radio operator, who were enlisted men. The Chaplains began to print actual TS cards, encouraging personnel to visit them for emotional problems, but the army put a stop to it. and burning ash destroyed the air base and about 88 of the B–25 bombers parked there. The ship was defended to the very end by her crew chief who swept the burning ashes from her wings as long as he could.