THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509140395
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Donald M. White, a highly decorated retired rear admiral who served as a Navy aviator in World War II and the Korean War, died Monday at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Fla. He was 80 and lived in Pensacola.
The cause was complications from abdominal surgery, his son Michael said.
A native of Minneapolis, White graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1937 and became a naval aviator three years later. He was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and, soon after, as a member of a torpedo squadron assigned to the Enterprise, he participated in one of the first American offensive actions of World War II. He later took part in raids on Marcus Island, Wake Island, Truk, Kwajalein, Rabaul, and Majuro Atoll.
Cited for ``extraordinary heroism'' as the acting commander of the torpedo squadron in a raid on Japanese forces at Rabaul on Nov. 11, 1943, he was awarded the Navy Cross. As his squadron was attacked by more than 100 Japanese planes, the citation said, White ``personally gave chase to enemy planes until the attack had been repulsed.''
He commanded an air group on the carrier Boxer in the Korean War. After the war, he commanded an ammunition ship and then the carrier Forrestal. He retired in 1970.
Besides his son Michael, of Palm City, Fla., White is survived by a daughter, Barbara Smith of Fairbanks, Alaska; four other sons, Bruce, of St. Leonard, Md., Donald Jr., of White Hall, Md., Edward, of Greensboro, N.C., and Anthony, of Pensacola; and 15 grandchildren. His wife of 50 years, Ruth, died in 1987.
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB