{"id":17391,"date":"2025-05-21T08:08:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=17391"},"modified":"2025-05-19T15:38:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T19:38:19","slug":"his-brother-died-in-wwii-and-hes-still-searching-for-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/05\/21\/his-brother-died-in-wwii-and-hes-still-searching-for-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"His Brother Died in WWII and He’s Still Searching for Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Howard Wright was in middle school in 1944 when he answered a knock on the door and found a Western Union boy carrying a telegram with news that would devastate his family and prompt questions that have lingered for 80 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c…Your son Private First Class Elmer G. Wright has been reported missing in action since six March in Tunisia,\u201d the telegram read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A month later, the family was notified that 23-year-old Elmer had been killed in action when his ship was lost 8 miles off the coast of Tunisia. His body was never recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard Wright, now 95, has never stopped mourning his older brother \u2014 his eyes still fill with tears when he describes the arrival of that telegram and the gentle way his brother had always watched out for him. He has spent the last 50 years piecing together details about what happened the day Elmer died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The walls of his home office in East Boothbay, Maine, are covered with framed photos of generations of his family, including a large portrait of Elmer in uniform that dominates one wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a small coffee table sits a 4-inch binder full of documents: letters to and from Elmer, photos of him during his service, military records for Liberty Ships, and firsthand accounts of the day Wright\u2019s ship was lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, the only medal the family had marking Elmer\u2019s military service was the Purple Heart awarded after his death. In fall 2024, with help from Maine\u2019s Senator Susan Collins\u2019 office, the Army verified that Elmer Wright was entitled to another five medals: a Presidential Unit Citation, a European- African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one Bronze Service Star, an Army Good Conduct Medal, an American Campaign Medal, and a World War II Victory Medal that was sent to Howard in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receiving those medals has been special for Howard, a tangible acknowledgment of the sacrifice his brother made. But one mystery remains: What was the mission that put Elmer on a ship bound for Iran?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard knows there\u2019s a possibility he\u2019ll never know the answer \u2014 nearly all of his brother\u2019s service records were lost in a fire, and most World War II veterans have since died \u2014 but he won\u2019t let himself give up hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want (my) son, his wife, and our grandchildren to know the story of my brother so it doesn\u2019t get lost and they can appreciate the sacrifice he made,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A Call to Service<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Elmer, who went by Pat, graduated from Colgate in December 1942 with a degree in Spanish and a month later was inducted into the Army. Howard said his brother was supposed to be in limited service, away from combat zones, because he was hard of hearing. But the Army saw value in his ability to read lips and speak three foreign languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was assigned to a small unit of nine men who were all college educated and highly fluent in various languages, Howard said. The unit was sent to Fort Custer in Michigan for special training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elmer left Norfolk, Va., on Feb. 13, 1944, aboard the Daniel Chester French, a Liberty Ship bound for Iran, part of a 90-ship convoy that ran into a storm off the North African coast. Records indicate the seas were still turbulent when the commodore ordered some ships to change their positions on the night of March 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the following morning, there was confusion because the convoy was stretched across 12 miles, said Howard, who has been able to piece together the events from military records and firsthand accounts from survivors. The two rerouted Liberty Ships, the Daniel Chester French and the Virginia Dare, were about 4 miles behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a monster storm and his ship was directed right through our own minefield,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Virginia Dare was the first to run into a mine and sent out a distress call at 7:15 a.m. Five minutes later, the ship Elmer was on hit the mines. The ship was loaded with ammunition and soon exploded. Those on board were ordered to immediately abandon ship. It sank within 30 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heroic Actions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The men on board scrambled to get to the available lifeboats. But Howard said his brother and the other 86 Army passengers didn\u2019t know that the lifeboats had open drains in the bottom that needed to be closed before they were lowered into the raging sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the ship sank, Elmer swam to a lifeboat alongside Lt. James Boyle, who survived and later wrote to the family about what happened. The men were pulled into the lifeboat and grabbed onto the same oar, working together to row because the seas were too strong for one man alone. The boat was filling with water and Elmer told Boyle he\u2019d help bail it out using his helmet. A few minutes later, the boat was lifted by a large wave and turned over. Boyle never saw Elmer again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen many were praying aloud and paralyzed with fright, [Elmer] kept his head and tried to do what he could,\u201d Boyle wrote. \u201cDuring the short time I knew him, he was always a gentleman, and in the boat, he acted like a man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elmer was among the 37 men from the ship who died that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, the telegram arrived at the Wright home in Pennsylvania, followed months later by a letter from Brig. Gen. Robert H. Dunlop informing them that Elmer had died when he was a passenger \u201con a United States ship that was sunk as the result of enemy action in the Mediterranean Sea near Bizerte, Tunisia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years later, Dorothy Wright wrote a letter to Army officials, the never-ending grief of a Gold Star mother evident in every line. She relayed Boyle\u2019s details and her fear that her son, \u201cwho had a nervous heart and was quite hard of hearing,\u201d couldn\u2019t hear the warnings that the boat was about to go over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until years later that Howard learned the truth: The Daniel Chester French was taken down by friendly fire, not an enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he\u2019s glad that his mother never knew because it would have been so upsetting. But he still wishes he knew what his brother\u2019s unit was doing on that ship. Relatives of other men from the unit have told him it was a \u201chush-hush\u201d mission that involved frequent contact with both Allied and Axis spies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighty years after he lost his brother, Howard wonders what he\u2019d think of his 50-year search for answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would hope he would think I\u2019m trying to make sense out of a senseless loss. It\u2019s one thing to be killed in action by the enemy, but to be killed in action by your own, that\u2019s a big pill to swallow,\u201d he said, pausing as his voice was overcome with grief. \u201cHe gave his life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Howard Wright flips through his mother\u2019s address book that he used to begin contacting people to ask about his older brother\u2019s death in World War II. Photo by Brianna Soukup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A longer version of this article by Gillian Graham first appeared in the Nov. 10, 2024, edition of Maine\u2019s Portland Press Herald<\/em> and is reprinted here with permission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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