大象传媒

At 27 my brother Harry Wright was called up for the army in 1940. After doing his basic training he was posted to the Royal Artillery as a gunner and for a while served in various units as an A.A. gunner.

During 1941 he was later transferred to the 5/3 maritime regiment R.A to be a gunner D.E.M.S (Defense Equipped Merchant Ships). After a leave during November 1941 he left to join a ship in this capacity.

This was the last my parents and I heard of him until a telegram came on January 1st saying was missing presumed killed, later followed by the information that he had been killed at sea by enemy action.

Very little information could be obtained by my father of his death until with the help of modern technology I was researching the internet and found the full story.

It seems he sailed from a southern port to join a ship he was posted to. This ship the S.S. Leopold 11 had sailed from Quebec in Canada with a cargo of wood pulp. Crossing the Atlantic it sailed round the north of Scotland to anchor in the Methil Roads in the Firth of Forth where the gunners joined it to protect it in the North Sea, its Atlantic journey being out of range of German aircraft.

The ship continued its journey down the North Sea until it struck a mine laid by enemy aircraft just off the Wash, 35 miles east of Cromer, where it sunk with the loss of 34 men.

32 out of 33 seamen lost their lives, and 2 D.E.M.S gunners one of which was my brother Harry Wright. By a strange coincidence the other gunner who died was also named Wright, a lad from Gillingham named John, no relation to my brother.

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