Lieutenant Thomas R. White

Doctor Thomas Robert White was born on 29 March 1909 in Haiku, Hawaii. 

He was home schooled until the family moved to California, where he enrolled in and graduated from Redlands High School, Redlands, California in 1927.  He then went on to the California Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a BS degree.  White took on post graduate work at Harvard University and also at the University of Southern California.  He was awarded his M.D. degree at Harvard Medical School in 1937 and went on to Johns Hopkins for his post graduate training, interning in Baltimore and Honolulu. 

His father was Clarence Greenleaf White and his mother was Florence Rumley White (Fisk). The couple had 4 children, three daughters and one son.

"Doc" White prepared the 16 Doolittle crews and the crew who trained with them with numerous vaccines. He also gave lectures to the crews on hygiene and sanitation while in primitive conditions.

However, during the flight Dr. Thomas R. White was the gunner in crew 15. He was trained for that during the training seesions at Eglin, Florida.

Medical kits were prepared and assembled for each plane, and “Doc” assembled a small surgical kit for himself, having to bear in mind the severe weight considerations. He also put together personal medical kits for each of the individual crewmembers, containing a dose of morphine, field dressing and sulfanilamide tablets in case of wounds sustained, as well as 60 grains of quinine for protection against malaria, tincture of iodine,caffeine tablets to help the crews stay alert for the long haul to China, and last, but not least, a pint of whiskey.

Proceeded to Kobe, Japan and bombed the main industrial area, an aircraft factory, dock yards and yards in the north part of the Bay with 4 incendiary clusters, proceeded to China.

In the dark rainy night the crew of plane 15 finally saw the mountains along the Chinese coastline. The pilot tried in vain to raise the bomber to escape the mountain peaks but the fuel was running out. Pilot Smith was then forced to land on the sea, an area less than 500 meters away from the Tantou Mountain Island of east China's Zhejiang Province. The bomber landed steadily on the sea water and the aircrew all was safe without any injury.

When the crew swam safely to the shore on the Tantou Mountain Island, they found that gunner(and surgeon) Thomas "Doc" White was left nowhere. It turned out that White was looking for his "treasures, a surgical instrument box and a case full of medicine. White failed to find his medicine box, though; he got back his surgical instrument box in the sea. 

Ma Liangshui was playing cards with friends at home when suddenly he heard barks outside the village. Sparkling flash of flashlights could also be seen in the darkness at the far side of the village. In time of war, those who use flashlight in the night were either enemy soldiers or pirates. In a hurry, The Mas' fled to a mountain behind their house. After a moment of silence, Ma Liangshui's father-in-law volunteered to find what had happened. The old man soon came back and said that there were no pirates at all but a few foreigners. So Ma Liangshui and his family went home and found four foreigners, in odd leather dresses and all wet, in their pigpen. Ma brought them home and his wife Zhao Xiaobao found some dry clothes for them and lit a fire to warm them. Since no one in the village understood any English, it took the Mas'quite some time to identify the four foreigners. With the help of a world map, the Ma's finally knew that the four tall foreigners were U.S. pilots.

At daybreak the next morning, Ma Liangshui helped the four U.S. pilots find Doc White under a huge rock at the entrance of the village. In the night, Ma Liang Shui and other Chinese friends dressed them all up as Chinese fishermen and helped them through the Japanese blockade on a sampan/

Local guerillas then helped them to free China where they learned of a crew that was seriously injured on landing.

They immediately hastened to assist, where Doc found Ted Lawson, Pilot of Crew 7, delirious and septic. Gangrene had set in on his lower leg. Despite attempts to control with debridement, topical sulfur antibiotic powder, and blood transfusions from other crewmembers, he worsened. 

In a report of 8 July 1942 we read "All crew members o.k.. Thomas R. White, Medical Corps, a member of the crew, at great risk to his life and with exemplary courage remained inside the sinking ship with water rising dangerously until his surgical instruments and medical kit could be salvaged. However years later, White still regretted failing to find his medicine box.

Had the medicine box not been lost in the sea,  Ted Lawson of Bomber No. 7 might not have lost his leg.  White failed to find his medicine box.  The plane plunged down into the water just after he had completed his effort and escaped. This action, together with his unselfish devotion to duty and attendance on the injured crew of airplane #AC 40-2261 in spite of a Japanese advance into that area, indicated exemplary courage and deserves special commendation." Doc was now faced with doing an amputation in a rural Chinese Missionary hospital using 1890's equipment.

Traditional doctrine called for a guillotine type amputation, but Doc knew having an exposed wound would lead to further infection. He performed an above the knee amputation and used flaps to cover the stump under a spinal anesthetic. Later he gave Lawson 2 units of his own blood.

Pilot of crew 07 (“The Ruptured Duck” plane") - Ted Lawson - a part of his leg was amputeted in China by Dr. Thomas R. White 

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