Leading Aircraftman James Richard WRIGHT (1941)

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Born 13 July 1923 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire
Died while on active service 26 June 1943, aged 19
Buried at Medicine Hat (Hillside) Cemetery, Alberta, Canada.

Richard Wright was the son of James Frank Wright and Lilian, née Glover, of Kirton Lindsey, Lincolnshire.

He was educated at Brigg Grammar School. He later wrote to the school magazine, The Briggensian, from Oxford:

14th June, 1942

It is with mixed feelings that I take up my pen to write this, my second and last wartime Oxford letter. However the natural feeling of regret which everyone experiences on going down from Oxford is tempered in my case by the fact that I am keenly looking forward to what promises to be an interesting career in the RAF. Even my short air experience has convinced me that flying is not without its thrills. Still I shall miss the majestic splendour of the High, arrayed in all its glory in the evening sun of early summer; I shall miss the rugged beauty of the 14th-century quad where I live, the misplaced cheerfulness of my scout in the early morning and all the things to which I have become so accustomed…

At the moment most people are fully occupied with "Schools" i.e. examinations—a spectre which is always hovering in the background and well calculated to spoil the second half of an otherwise perfect summer term.

Many attractions have inevitably disappeared, but otherwise life is much the same as I imagine it was in pre-war days. College dances are still held with regularity, but obviously not on the same lavish scale as "Commem. Balls" of yore; parties are less numerous but not less gay. Cambridge beat Oxford at tennis, BNC. and Christ Church finished head of the river in Eights Week, and there is to be no Boat Race. At the theatre John Gielgud played Macbeth to enthusiastic audiences, and "Hellzapopping" was popular at the cinema; the former House of Commons' chef gives the best food in Oxford at the Union, and so life goes on…

The outstanding event in the political world was the election of a negro President of the Union for the first time in its history. He comes from the West Indies, and his election is definitely an Empire event. The fact that he is a Socialist, and a very Left Socialist at that, is significant of the current trend of political thought in Oxford. The powerful Conservative caucus in the Union has now almost disappeared and the tendency at the moment is to break away from the shackles of the party system. A project was even considered whereby all political clubs should unite under the name of the Progressive Club. Rightly this was rejected: to take an example, although we all want to go forward. it is patently obvious that the Liberals want to progress in quite a different direction to the Communists. A political truce would serve no useful purpose whatever in Oxford.

However this letter was not meant to be political and I fear that I have already written more than enough.

The following are not commemorated on the war memorial, but were listed in the Merton College War Record 1939-1946, published by Oxford University Press: