PILOT Officer Samuel Donald Whiteside known as Donald or Don to family and friends from Korumburra has been honoured as part of the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.
Sheltering in the portico of the Australian War Memorial 15 members of Pilot Officer Whiteside’s family gathered to place wreaths and lay floral tributes.
Donna Matthews (nee Whiteside) and Sam Whiteside the daughter and son of Donald Whiteside’s younger brother Duncan were the first to lay wreaths at the Pool of Reflection and were made honorary members of 460 Squadron.
Part of air operations targeting Berlin in 1943 and 1944, Pilot Officer Whiteside was initially posted as missing presumed dead on January 27, 1944.
It was not until 1951 that the dairy farming family of the late Samuel and Margaret Whiteside of Korumburra South were notified that the RAAF had determined Whiteside, and his crew had been shot down by a German night fighter south-west of Berlin. Whiteside was buried in a war cemetery alongside his fellow crew members.
Donald’s older sister Mary Whiteside (later Mary Cantwell) and his younger brother Angus Duncan (known as Duncan) continued the family farm with beef cattle.
Educated in Korumburra then Sale the young Whiteside had a reputation as a handy schoolboy batsman and handball champion, shooter and footballer for Jumbunna.
Awarded the Aircrew Europe Star Pilot Officer Whiteside also earned the Defence Medal, War Medal 1939-45 and Australia Service Medal 1939-45.
Donald Whiteside enlisted on September 12, 1941.
Within three months of enlisting Aircraftman Whiteside was promoted to Leading Aircraftman and transferred to the Air Observer School at Mt Gambier.
Promoted from Aircrew Observer to Air Observer, Sergeant then Flight Sergeant and finally Warrant Officer Donald Whiteside graduated as a Navigator twelve months later.
After attending Bomb and Gunnery School in Sale and Air Navigation School in Nhill, Whiteside left for England in July 1942 to be stationed at RAAF Station Bournemouth, the Advanced Flying Unit at Dumfries and Operational Training at Lichfield.
Pilot Officer Whiteside joined 460 Squadron in September 1943 based at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme and is proudly remembered by the Korumburra community at the Cenotaph in Coleman Park.
The record of 460 Squadron is as impressive as it was tragic, of the 39 trainees pictured with Samuel Whiteside in 460 Squadron only half are known to have survived the war.
The Squadron was initially equipped with twin-engine Wellington bombers, then briefly four-engine Halifaxs before being re-equipped with Lancasters in 1942.
460 Squadron held the record for most missions flown and the greatest tonnage of bombs dropped for Bomber Command however these records exacted a grim price.
A total of 181 aircraft and more than 1018 crew including 589 Australians were lost from 460 Squadron principally to enemy night fighters and anti-aircraft fire or 'flak'.
The most effective form of attack on a Lancaster was carried out by twin engine night fighters fitted with upward firing automatic 20mm cannons.
The enemy fighter would approach from below and position itself under the Lancaster where it could not be seen from any of the defensive positions.
A furious burst of cannon fire into the belly of the aircraft would generally have fatal consequences for the Lancaster and it was one of these attacks during a night raid over Germany in 1944 that Samuel Donald Whiteside lost his life aged 33 years.
Pilot Officer Whiteside was buried alongside his crew with 3595 others at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Berlin.
Lancasters were crewed by seven men the Pilot, Flight Engineer, Bomb Aimer/Forward Gunner, Navigator, Wireless Operator, Mid Upper Gunner and Tail Gunner.
The crew stations were concentrated immediately behind the pilot.
The tail and mid-upper gunners were located towards the rear of the aircraft and separated from the rest of the crew by the main wing spar.
The pilot was 'on his own' although the Flight Engineer had a 'dickey seat', a folding canvas arrangement alongside the pilot where he could sit for take-off and landing when engine management was at its most demanding.
In the event of calamity, getting out of a stricken Lancaster was not easy.
The tail gunner in particular had to open the rear door to his turret to get to his parachute, put it on and then hand-wind the turret at 90 degrees to exit the aircraft through the rear turret door.
The iconic ‘G for George’ Lancaster in the Australian War Memorial Canberra is a 460 Squadron aircraft.
The squadron was reformed in 2010 as an air intelligence unit to perpetuate the squadron designation in honour of the men who had built its reputation.
The squadron is regarded as having been the most efficient of the Australian bomber squadrons in WWII maintaining consistently higher serviceability rates among its aircraft, setting numerous operational records with Bomber Command, and flying the most bombing raids of any Australian squadron.
The Avro Lancaster B1 known as ‘G for George’ had a remarkable history flying ninety operational missions over Germany and occupied Europe.
From the time it was built in 1942 until its retirement from active service in 1944 the bomber was flown by No. 460 Squadron RAAF which flew over 6000 sorties including some of the largest raids over Berlin, Hamburg and the industrial Ruhr Valley.
The squadron is credited with dropping 24,856 tons of bombs.
Crewmen such as Pilot Officer Samuel Donald Whiteside faced a three per cent chance of dying on any one raid, and they had to do this at least 30 times.
Australians like Pilot Officer Whiteside who served in Bomber Command were subjected to the most stringent selection and most demanding and dangerous training of any large group of servicemen to leave Australia.
Trained in a highly structured sequence of schools where others decided what they did and where they went, the airmen themselves chose who they went into battle with.
Pilot Officer Whiteside and his crew first flew Avro Lancaster B1 Bomber ‘G for George’ on its 59th mission on October 3, 1943.
On the night of January 27, 1944, Whiteside and his crew in Lancaster JB 637 took off from RAF Binbrook to bomb Berlin but did not return to base.
Of those who trained with Donald Whiteside, P.F. Wallace died flying in battle over New Guinea aged 20 years, B.R.J. Stubbs died in Malta aged 23 years, R.E. Tylor was reported missing as the result of air operations in April 1945, J. Tamlyn died March 1945, L.W. Roper was reported lost in a Lancaster in 1943 aged 26, G.E. Walker was reported lost in an aircraft in 1940, R.N. Wallace died over Denmark in 1943, R.E. Wilson was lost in a Kittyhawk in 1944, A.R. Webster died flying in battle over Dutch New Guinea in 1944 aged 21, Flying Officer I.J. Wilkinson died in November 1944, Keith "Bluey" Truscott was killed during the war, and C.J. Trotman was buried with Pilot Officer Anderson in the War Cemetery in Berlin.
The Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial is held at 4.30pm every day except Christmas Day and each ceremony shares one of the stories behind the 103,000 names on the Memorial Honour Roll.
“The Last Post Ceremony is our commitment to remembering and honouring the legacy of Australian service,” said Memorial Director Matt Anderson.
“Through our daily Last Post Ceremony, we not only acknowledge where and how these men and women died we also tell the stories of who they were when they were alive, and of the families who loved and, in so many cases, still mourn for them.
“The Last Post is associated with remembrance but originally it was a bugle call to sound the end of the day’s activities in the military.
“It is a fitting way to end each day at the Memorial,” said Mr Anderson
Those gathered at the War Memorial were told Pilot Officer Whiteside gave his life for us, for our freedom and a better world.
The Last Post Ceremony honouring the service of Pilot Officer Samuel Whiteside can be viewed on the Australian War Memorial’s YouTube page youtube.com/watch?v=Zn3D6cWHtrU.
