White, Cecil Godfrey
Military Cross
Captain
53rd Squadron, Royal Air Force and
Royal Field Artillery
Killed in action on Sunday 21 April 1918 (aged 27)
Buried:
Sanctuary Wood Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium (Grave IV.C.7.)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Brother of Second Lieutenant William White, Royal Dublin Fusiliers
BIOGRAPHY
Cecil Godfrey White was a son of surgeon Robert Godfrey White MD FRCP FRCS and Minnie Moore White (nee Finnigan) who were married by special licence on 4 March 1889 in the bride’s home in Fortwilliam Terrace, Antrim Road, Belfast. This house was in the Parish of St James’s Church of Ireland Church, Belfast. Robert Godfrey White from The Firs, Haughley, Suffolk was a son of Joseph William White, a Dublin solicitor. Minnie Moore Finnigan was a daughter of Edward Shirley Finnigan, a Belfast solicitor.
Robert Godfrey and Minnie Moore White (nee Finnigan) had at least three children:
William (born 17 January 1890 in Suffolk – from a notice in the Bury and Norwich Post)
Cecil Godfrey (born around 1891 in Suffolk; baptised 7 May 1891 in Haughley Church of England Church, Suffolk)
Son (born at Kobe, China on 27 July 1895)
Their father, Robert Godfrey White, died on 21 April 1897 at Boscombe, Bournemouth.
In 1901 William and Cecil White were living at Sydenham Avenue, Belfast with their maternal grandparents, Edward and Mary Jane Finnigan. Edward Finnigan was a solicitor by profession and in 1901 he was appointed Her Majesty’s Coroner in Belfast. Both William and Cecil White attended Bangor Grammar School.
In 1911 Cecil White was an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin.
During the Great War Cecil Godfrey White served with the Royal Field Artillery, and later the Royal Air Force. In the 25 August 1917 edition of the London Gazette, it was reported that he had been awarded the Military Cross, ‘for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Although in considerable pain from an unhealed wound, he continued to command his own and another battery for four days, keeping up a successful bombardment of enemy strong points and craters. Upon conclusion of the bombardment, he was compelled to go sick. His conduct throughout has been magnificent.’
On 21 April 1918 he was reported missing in action, and this remained the official position for several years until the remains of two officers were found intermingled with the debris of a crashed aeroplane about a mile east of Zillebeke. One officer was wearing brogues inside his flying boots. They were identified by means of their clothing and buttons, together with the markings on the aeroplane and its serial number (C5037). They were buried together in Sanctuary Wood Cemetery, and it was reported that:
In Plot 4, Row C, Grave 7 of Sanctuary Wood Cemetery are buried Eric Hubert Noel Stroud and Cecil Godfrey White. Both were sons of doctors, and they were killed in 1918. Stroud had served with the Leicestershire Regiment before transferring to the Royal Air Force. White had served with the Royal Field Artillery before transferring to the Royal Air Force. Initially their names were not known. However, the markings on the aeroplane and its serial number (C5037) confirmed that it had been flown by Lieutenant Eric Hubert Noel Stroud and Captain Cecil Godfrey White from the 53rd Squadron on the day both men went missing. Based on this, the bodies were identified and the grave marked as such.’
The then Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) wrote to the families to tell them of this news, and it was concluded that, ‘even nine years after they were killed the knowledge that their sons now at least had a known grave was of some small comfort.’
Captain C G White MC and Lieutenant EHN Stroud are jointly commemorated on a CWGC headstone within Sanctuary Wood Cemetery, Zillebeke:
LIEUTENANT
EHN STROUD
LEICESTERSHIRE REGIMENT
AND ROYAL AIR FORCE
21ST APRIL 1918 AGE 23
HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP
CAPTAIN
CG WHITE MC
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
AND ROYAL AIR FORCE
21ST APRIL 1918 AGE 26
Whilst Second Lieutenant William White is commemorated on the War Memorial Plaque in Bangor Grammar School, his brother, Captain Cecil Godfrey White is not.