White’s Turkish Odyssey
“One Arab, whom I mistaken at a distance for a soldier in blue uniform, proved to be a naked fanatical savage…”
Captain Thomas Walter White, sitting second from the left, July 1915, Basra.
Captain Thomas Walter White, Australian Flying Corps, had just landed, damaging his aircraft in the desert close to the ancient city of Baghdad. His observer, Captain Francis Yeats-Brown, Royal Flying Corps, jumped out to blow the telegraph lines, while White kept the approaching Arabs at bay with a rifle. Once Yeats-Brown had successfully blown the lines, the men started the engine of the aircraft. Unfortunately, the propeller became entangled in the broken telegraph wires, and along with the damage from landing and the rough ground, made take-off impossible.
Meanwhile, the Arabs had quickly closed in, firing rapidly from close range. Fortunately, neither White nor Yeats-Brown was hit. As soon as White jumped back out of the aircraft, he was approached by Arabs intent on doing him harm. A naked Arab, with a large bore rifle, closed quickly on White, who reached for his revolver, only to find he had left it in the aircraft. Luckily the Arab was distracted by the spinning propeller, but this did not stop others from rushing White. Deflecting and evading the blows as best he could, White was hit by a heavy swipe from an adze or rifle butt, causing a nasty gash which began to bleed profusely.
Luckily for White and Yeats-Brown, a detachment of Turkish gendarmerie had also seen their aircraft land. The Turks tried to protect the flyers from the Arabs while attempting to take them prisoner. As the pair was led away to a small building close to where they had landed, they were repeatedly struck, stabbed, slashed at with swords and spat on by the Arabs. The building, ironically, turn out to be the Turkish gendarmerie headquarters and once inside they were safe from the Arabs but no longer free men.
This short account is of White and Yeats-Brown’s capture on 13 November 1915, ninety-nine years ago today. White’s Private Record collection has been digitised by the Memorial for the Anzac Connections project, as part of the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War. His collection is a fascinating insight into life as a prisoner of war in Turkish hands, and gives glimpses of the Ottoman Empire just before its collapse. White also records the treatment by the Turks of his fellow prisoners and civilians. To find out more, including how White escaped, go to his Anzac Connections page here.