Osmar Egmont Dorkin White (1909 - 1991)

Ancestors

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 formative years 1.2 early career 1.3 Second World War 1.4 post war 1.5 retirement 1.6 literary works by Osmar White 2 Sources 3 See also

Biography

Osmar White was aNew Zealand-born Australian journalist, war correspondent and writer. He is most famous for his vivid description of the New Guinea Campaign during the Second World War.

formative years

Osmar Egmont Dorkin White was born on 2nd April 1909 in Feilding, Wellington, New Zealand. He was the only child of English-born commercial traveller, Hubert White, and his wife, Grace Downey. ^[1]

The family moved to Queensland, Australia when Osmar was five and he attended primary school at Toowoomba. By 1916 they had relocated to Katoomba, New South Wales, where he completed his secondary education at the local intermediate high school. ^[2]

early career

Osmar's early years in journalism were in New South Wales, with the Cumberland Times in Parramatta, the Parkes Post, the Wagga Wagga Advertiser and the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Whilst with the Telegraph he studied at the University of Sydney. His lifelong taste for travel began with trips to the Mandated Territory of New Guinea and to China in the early 1930s. ^[2]

By 1934 Osmar had returned to New Zealand and was soon working for the Taranaki Daily News. Three years later he was editor of the New Zealand Radio Record. ^[2]

On 23rd July 1937 in St Mary’s Anglican Church, New Plymouth, Osmar married Mollie Allen, a fellow journalist. ^[3]

Second World War

From 1938, Osmar was a journalist with The Herald and Weekly Times, and was still there during the Japanese invasion of Papua and New Guinea (then two separate Australian territories) in 1942, before becoming an accredited war correspondent with the Australian forces there. ^[2] Together with Australian war photographer Damien Parer and war correspondent Chester Wilmot, Osmar walked over the Bulldog Track to cover the guerrilla campaign conducted by Kanga Force and later also covered the Kokoda Track Campaign, detailing the trials and triumphs of Allied troops during that time. ^[4]

He was seriously wounded during the New Georgia campaign and, while recovering in Australia, he wrote Green Armour, which described in detail the harsh conditions of the jungle fighting in 1942 including on the Kokoda Track. ^[4]

Herald and Weekly Times chairman, Sir Keith Murdoch, who had been a First World War war correspondent, promoted Osmar and sent him to Europe to cover the Western Front. ^[2] Osmar was one of the few Australian journalists attached to the Supreme Allied Command (SHAEF), and was present during the Allied liberation of Paris. He was later attached to General George Patton's Third Army, and followed it into Germany during the final days of the war in Europe. ^[4]

post war

After the war, Osmar returned to Australia and the Melbourne Herald as a senior writer. In the early 1950s, he wrote a hard-hitting series that ran for over one year and called for radical reform of mental health and child welfare provisions in the State of Victoria. However, his main specialty was the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and Papua New Guinea, where he travelled extensively in the 1950s and early 1960s. He was the sole Australian press representative on the Australian Antarctic expedition of 1956-57. Osmar also wrote under the pseudonyms Robert Dentry, E M Dorkin, and Maros Gray. ^[2]

retirement

Following his retirement from daily journalism in 1963, Osmar wrote a number of books, including a history of Papua New Guinea, a successful series of children's books, two novels, radio and television scripts and occasional contributions to various newspapers and magazines. ^[2]

He passed away on 16th May 1991 in Fairfield Hospital, Victoria. He was survived by Mollie, and their two daughters, one of whom, Sally, would follow him into journalism.

In 2013 Osmar was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame. ^[5]

literary works by Osmar White

• Green Armour. Australian War Classics series. Penguin, 1945. ISBN 0-14-014706-3.
• Parliament of a Thousand Tribes: a Study of New Guinea. Heinemann, 1966.
• Time Now, Time Before. Heinemann, Melbourne, 1967.
• Under the Iron Rainbow: Northwest Australia Today. Heinemann, Melbourne, 1969.
• Australia for Everyone: a Modern Guide, 1974.
• Silent Reach. Charles Scribner, New York, 1978.
• Conquerors' Road. Harper Collins/Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0732256070.

Sources

1. ↑ New Zealand Birth Index #1909/1136
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6} Wikipedia profile: Osmar White; accessed 18 Jul 2019
3. ↑ New Zealand Marriage Index #1937/8742
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Hill, Tony. Voices from the Air: ABC War Correspondents of the Second World War. HarperCollinsPublishers, Sydney, 2016. ISBN 978 0 7333 3502 0
5. ↑ Melbourne Press Club Australian Media Hall of Fame Inductees; accessed 2 Apr 2022

See also

• Trembath, Richard. 'White, Osmar Egmont (1909–1991)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published online 2018; accessed online 19 Jul 2019.
• Wikipedia profile: Osmar White; accessed 18 Jul 2019.