Bill White could have died from malignant malaria, under enemy fire or on a sinking ship during World War II, but it wasn’t his time – not by a long shot.
Bill has cracked the century, and gone two better.
At 102, having recently celebrated a birthday, he is in good form, a walking stick his only visible concession to his advanced years, and happy to talk about his life.
It began when Arthur William White was born to Arthur and Florence in Western Australia in 1922.
His father, an English immigrant, had served with the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, and had been aide de camp to Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Brudenell Bingham White.
At age 17, a few weeks after World War II began, Bill enlisted with the navy rather than following his father into the AIF.
“I couldn’t join anything else. You had to be 21. I didn’t want to wait another three or four years,” he said.
Bill trained as a telegraphist and wound up on the HMAS Hobart in the Mediterranean, south-west Asia and the western extension of the Battle of the Coral Sea.
The cruiser saw plenty of enemy fire but, well-armed and captained by Harry Howden, one of the navy’s best, it lost no crew in Bill’s time.
Ask him how he coped with what he saw around him and he explains he was focused on the tasks at hand.
“You see the smoke and crap. You don’t pay any attention to it,” he said.
Having been bombed by the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese, Bill rated the latter the best, “always, always”.
After the Hobart, Bill was sent to New Guinea to work on improving the wireless system and contracted malignant malaria, a severe infection. His sister was flown to say a final goodbye and plans were made for his funeral.
“They must have thought I was pretty bad,” he said.
Following his recovery, he was assigned to the HMAS Wallaroo but missed it when it set sail and sank after a collision because he had been admitted to sick bay that morning.
Getting through the war was partly about having trust and faith in the captain but also “some luck”, he said.
After the war, Bill was offered the chance to train as an electrical engineer, which would have necessitated moving interstate. More interested in building a house on a block of land he owned at Cottesloe, he instead opted for carpentry and entered the building industry, which led him into construction management and to the east coast.
He oversaw construction of The Sands shopping centre at Maroochydore, which later became Sunshine Plaza, the highrises Mandolin at Alexandra Headland and Seaview at Mooloolaba, and various shopping centres and other developments in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast with millionaire property developer Eddie Kornhauser.
“We’d get the drive-ins, because they had flat land, and turn them into shopping centres,” he said.
Golf and his garden took up much of his time in retirement and well into his 90s. Following the death of his wife, Rita, Bill moved to aged care at Buderim.
He is believed to be the last remaining Coral Sea veteran in Australia.
The Maroochydore RSL put on a small party for him with his family, friends, a few veterans and some cake to mark his 102nd birthday in July.
A beer or more has never done Bill any harm. He quit smoking in the 1960s after seeing an image of what a smoker’s lungs looked like, but had smoked plenty before that.
“I would have had four or five before I got out of bed in the morning,” he said of his early days.
Daily exercises, and special exercises twice a week, keep him in shape enough to get around.
He has never been one to dwell on the past, even though there has been plenty of it.
“You’ve got to keep moving forward,” he said of life.
Asked what he thought of his life, he paused.
“I’ll be buggered if I know. It’s been interesting,” he said.
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