Major Alexander James Wright RM 805/RNFS

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by keith A

I should state that (according to Sturtivant) Lt AJ Wright flying a Hurricane shot down a S.79 off Haifa on 14 July 1941. At this time Wright would have been with 805 Squadron according to most sources. 805 Squadron was flying Martlet III.

best regards

Keith

I think there was more than one A J Wright
First of all Chris Shores has no A J Wright claiming two or more victories in his books.
Secondly in his MAW vol 1 it says with regard to 21 April 1941 that a Lt A J Wright in 803 Sq claimed
a CANT Z.1007bis in a Fulmar
No more A J Wright is indexed in any of the other MAW books.

Neither can I find any claim by any A J Wright in Shores' Dust Clouds in the ME, but admittedly
the attacks on Haifa are not included but I have pencilled in the known attacks by hand and
on 14 July 1941 I have nothing listed.
They were done from Rhodes and as far as I know mostly by CANTs

Your statement that Ray lists Wright as claiming an S.79 on 14 July 1941 is intriguing since looking
in his FAA Aircraft 1939-45 on p.510 it only says aircraft type, s/n and date.
No indication it is a victory claim.
Checking Hurricane N2398 (the one listed) the book says it belonged to 804 Sq during the date in
question, but nothing about a claim on that specific date.
Aircraft was transferred to 760 Sq and a Lt A J Wright is listed as having an accident with the aircraft
on 24 May 1942

As you can see we have a lot of A J Wrights and which one is your Wright is hard to say.
Unfortunately I don't follow pilots as such since my main interest is the aircraft, but I like
to pick up things here and there with regard to pilots as well.

Hope someone else can clinch this kind of enigma....

Cheers
Stig