Navy war hero’s lifetime award
Newbury man honoured for service in Second World War
A NEWBURY naval war hero has been honoured with a lifetime membership of the Royal Naval Association for his service during the Second World War.
Don Wright, 96, joined the Navy in 1944 and served in the radar crew on the destroyer HMS Teazer during the Pacific campaign against Japan.
He was then in Tokyo for the Japanese surrender and helped British prisoners of war on to the boats.
In a presentation on Tuesday, Mr Wright – who has been a longtime member of the Royal Naval Association (RNA) – was awarded life membership of the association “as a mark of the esteem and respect in which you are held as a World War II veteran”.
Receiving the honour, Mr
Wright said: “This is quite an honour gentlemen.
“I’m very thrilled and honoured because it came out of the blue.
“I joined the Navy when I was 18 because I wanted the chance to see a few things, and it turned out very well actually.
“It turned out a good choice.” The award was presented by secretary and vice president of the Newbury and District branch of the RNA Doug Bell and Newbury branch chairman Bob McGuinness.
Mr McGuinness said: “We are more than honoured to be able to present it to you sir, as you’ve more than earnt the honour.
“We, the organisation, have decided it’s fine time that we started awarding our Second World War veterans because we’re running out of them.”
Donald Ernest Wright was born on November 17, 1925, and grew up in Sandhurst in Berkshire before joining the Royal Navy aged 18 on April 10, 1944.
He first travelled to HMS Royal Arthur at Skegness in Lincolnshire to get kitted out, before travelling to HMS Glendower at Pwllheli in North Wales, squeezing three years-worth of training into 13 weeks, including lessons on seamanship, gunnery and specialist sections which, for Mr Wright, was radar due to his engineering and electrical background.
After further training at HMS Valkyrie on the Isle of Man and St Budeaux in Devon, Mr Wright’s foreign draft was confirmed – a trip to the Far East on HMS Teazer.
On February 28, 1945, Mr Wright and HMS Teazer left Greenock in Scotland with the convoy bound for Gibraltar, then on to Malta, through the Suez Canal to Aden – then a British colony – and on to Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
On April 29, HMS Teazer left Ceylon for Fremantle on the west coast of Australia, arriving eight days later – the day before Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on May 8.
After a brief spell in Melbourne and Sydney, Mr Wright departed for Manus in the Admiralty Islands off Papua New Guinea, where HMS Teazer was part of a British fleet in an attack on Japanese positions on the Truk Atoll on June 14 and 15, codenamed ‘Inmate’.
At 6am on July 6, the British Pacific Fleet left Manus for Japan.
By July 17, HMS Teazer was based off the east coast of Honshu – the largest Japanese island – with planes from aircraft carriers bombing the Japanese mainland, including Tokyo, with HMS Teazer responsible for screening the aircraft carriers and acting as a decoy.
Bombing continued for the next few weeks, with radio silence maintained on August 6 and 9 after “an unknown device” – as Mr Wright was told at the time –
was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It wasn’t until August 30 that HMS Teazer – now part of the US 3rd Fleet – was able to anchor in Tokyo Bay ahead of the signing of the Japanese surrender and peace terms on September 2.
Six days later, after welcoming 400 British prisoners of war on to the carrier HMS Speaker, Mr Wright began his long journey home.
On March 13, 1946, Mr Wright finally arrived back in Plymouth.
Deciding he didn’t want to stay on in the Royal Navy, Mr Wright was demobbed and transferred to the Naval Reserve.
He was subsequently awarded the Burma Star, the Pacific Star, the 1939-45 Star and the War Medal 1939-45, as well as a blue demob suit.
He returned to civilian life where he become a production engineer then a consultant.
He married Jennifer in 1966 and had three sons – Elliot, Christopher and Nicholas – as well as nine grandchildren, before moving to Newbury 10 years ago.