Letters to Libby

About the Book

Letters To Libby/ Part Three is the final book of a three part series. The books are comprised of edited letters written by Joseph A. White II to his Wife, Elizabeth T. White ( "LIBBY"), during World War II. The letters in part three chronicle a tale beginning in Italy at Caserta (June 5, 1944), and ending in Naples, Italy (January 22, 1945). Captain White spent his time flying King George VI, Prime Minister Churchill, Field Marshal H. R. Alexander, and others to their various destinations...all the while only wanting to get back to the good old U.S.A. and his beloved Wife 'Libby'!

About the Author

Joseph A. White II was born in Mebane, North Carolina on February 8, 1918 to Joseph and Lillian White. He spent his childhood years in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he met his wife to be B. Elizabeth Taylor; daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Raymond Taylor) in the First Baptist Church of Greensboro at the tender age of nine years old.

He later attended the University of Michigan from 1935-1938, where he earned his Bachelor of Music Degree. From 1938 to 1940 he furthered his education at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philidelphia. He then went back to the University of Michigan to earn his Master of Music Degree during the years 1940-1941. The instrument he played was the French Horn.

He volunteered for active duty in the Army-Air Corps in 1941 before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, began his flight training and married Elizabeth on May 16, 1942 in Valdosta, Georgia.

From 1942 to 1945 (the period covered by the letters in the three part series Letters To Libby), he was engaged as a troop-carrier, transport, and personal pilot to a variety of notable characters (Winston Churchill, The King of England, Ike Eisenhower, Field Marshall Montgomery, and Field Marshall Alexander)

After the war he and his wife returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan, but not before their first born child (J.A. White III) was delivered on December 3, 1945 in Greensboro, North Carolina. In Ann Arbor at the University he worked on his Doctorate and taught French Horn from 1946 to 1947 and then continued to work on his Doctorate and was hired as an instructor there from 1948 to 1950. On May 5, 1948, a second son was born to them (Raymond Alan White; the editor of this book).

In 1950 he and his family moved to Tallahassee, Florida where he began work at the Florida State University, while continuing working on his Doctorate. At F.S.U. he played and taught French Horn and a variety of other Music classes such as Music Theory and Sightsinging. He directed ensembles and dissertations as well as playing French Horn in several Symphony Orchestras around the nation. Joseph and Elizabeth's first daughter (Marcia Elizabeth White) was born in Tallahassee on May 6, 1951. Joseph White became Dr. White in 1958 when he was awarded his Doctorate from the University of Michigan. On July 26, 1959, their second daughter (Carroll Taylor White) and final family member of the immediate family was also born in Tallahassee. After becoming a Profressor he also served as Assistant to the Dean at the School of Music at F.S.U. until he retired in 1990. Immediately upon retiring he was rehired as a Visting Professor, and worked at F.S.U. until he died on July 31, 1999.

Dr. White died of a heart attack in his School of Music office on a Saturday working on administrative tasks concerning the 62nd Troop-Carrier Reunion for that year; and was found by his loving wife when she went to his office after he called her and said he wasn't feeling too well that day.

Dad always said that when it was time for him to go, he prayed that the Good Lord would take him quickly... and He did. It was a tragic but fitting end to the earthly life of a great man.

Excerpts

Friday Evening
November 3, 1944
Siena, Italy

Dearest Libby,

We are safely back in Italy, but I am depressed tonight because everything has gone wrong since this afternoon. I casually mentioned the flight in my V-mail because I thought it best to wait until tonight's long letter so I would have enough room to paint the whole picture for you. No, no quickening of the heart, darling, not at all serious, but a set of circumstances which forced me into a bad few moments.

The trip down today was fairly good, miserable only in a few places. I knew we would have to contend with the front that passed through Paris yesterday, but it was not fast moving, and I was assured that by the time we reached the Mediterranean we would break out in the clear. I was happy for that and could relax until we approached Italy where a stationary secondary front had been reported. We took off and flew almost due south from Paris, climbing until we reached eleven-thousand feet where the temperature was extremely cold. My feet were frozen stiff, but what a relief to be out in the clear. Just before we reached the southern coast of France west of Marseille, all frontal clouds disappeared, and we broke out into a beautifully clear day. But, of course, such couldn't be the case here in Italy. We had a devil of a time getting to our field from the coast because I had to make my way through the mountains to reach Siena. Finally, I found a place I could get through, and we arrived over the field at two-thirty after a five-hour fifteen-minute flight. A big, black thunderstorm lay north and east of the field making the air violently rough. I called the tower and asked for landing instructions "landing to the south." Well, the wind-sock was down, so I called again and asked the wind direction. He said: "Wind is from the north." "Then why are you having me land to the south. That's downwind," I responded. "Oh-Sorry, wind is from the south, straight down the runway."

Well, on the strength of that I made my approach in a normal manner, using quarter flaps. About two hundred feet off the end of the runway a gust caught me. My airspeed, down to 95, dropped off and the left wing went down. It was a bad moment, but with full throttle I recovered (such things often happen on gusty days) and continued on for a normal landing. But the s.o.b. in the tower had brought me in down-wind after all, and I couldn't stop the plane on the short runway, (it's only 2,800 feet to begin with, awfully short in the best conditions) so we rolled off the end of the runway onto the rain-soaked ground towards a ditch looming in the distance. There was nothing I could do. Imagine yourself in a car trying to turn on ice. Fortunately, with the throttle of the right engine pushed forward to the firewall and full left rudder we began to turn. Then, passing over a particularly soft spot the right wheel sunk about two and a half feet into the ground! And that's where Stardust is sitting right now. I was mortified, and I was mad, but not the least bit nervous. I was never so calm in all my life, but I still see red, even now. I sat there in the cockpit so angry I couldn't do anything but curse. I called the tower and had it out with the man who had given landing instructions. There were about four other planes up, waiting to land, and I told him to wake up and land those ships to the north like I should have been instructed to do. I had landed in a "8-mile-an-hour downwind!" Well, it's all over now. It was his fault, and mine. I should have gone around, but by the time I was finally able to tell I was landing with a tail-wind my airspeed was so low I had to land. And, of course, I had no idea the ground was so soft. That's why I said, it was a combination of circumstances beyond my control. I was committed to land; speed was down; I had to land. But poor Stardust. She looks so pathetic, like a wronged woman. I almost cried to see her up to her knees in mud, the right wheel sunk so far into the ground that the tip of my right engine propeller almost dipped into the mud itself. It affected me terribly. I know all of Stardust's funny traits, her sounds, and I felt as though I had let her down. My worst landing in over 1,200 hours of overseas flying!

And, as though that was not enough to sink my spirits, I am not at camp. I have not read your letters that I know are there waiting for me and that I had so hoped to have, but I am here in the plane! They have had so much rain here in the last two days that the road from the airport to the camp is impassable. There are landslides on the highway, trees blown down across the road,