Jim White was born on 4 November 1940 in Mount Hope, West Virginia. He joined the US Army in November 1957 and attended Warrant Officer Flight School. Warrant Officer Jim White was assigned to the 1st Aviation Brigade in the Republic of Vietnam in 1968. On December 10, 1968, Warrant Officer White was serving as part of a resupply mission for a friendly unit. During the mission, he witnessed the crash of an F-4G aircraft. Warrant Officer White immediately turned towards the stricken crew. With complete disregard to his own safety, he approached the crash site. The approach was terminated as the crew chief and gunner ran to the aid of the pilots. Throughout the mission, his aircraft was the target of intense enemy fire. Warrant Officer White remained in the area until the pilots of the downed aircraft were aboard his ship. For his bravery and superb piloting, Warrant Officer White was awarded the nation's highest award for heroism while participating in aerial flight, the Distinguished Flying Cross. The next year, on 18 May 1968, Warrant Officer White was serving as a pilot on a maintenance recovery mission to recover a UH-1D (Huey) shot down by hostile fire. On short final, his aircraft received intense hostile automatic weapons fire. The door gunners located the source of fire, but had to hold fire due to the close proximity of friendly forces. Warrant Officer White calmly continued the approach and landed. After discharging the rigging crew, small arms fire was received and the decision was made to get the recovery ship airborne in order to protect it. During take-off, his ship was again the target for hostile fire. The rigging crew was continually subjected to hostile fire while preparing the crashed aircraft for recovery. As soon as the downed aircraft had been lifted out of the area, Warrant Officer White began another approach into the area in order to pick up the rigging crew, and extracted them successfully although subjected to intense hostile fire. For his bravery during this operation, Warrant Officer White was awarded the Air Medal with V Device for valor.