Ships
- USS Washington (BB-56) Captain, 2 April 1947 – 27 June 1947
Commander Archie Taylor Wright, Jr., of the United States Navy, was the last commanding officer of the battleship USS Washington (BB-56). He took command on 2 April 1947 and remained aboard until 27 June 1947, the day the ship was decommissioned.
USS Washington (BB-56) was a North Carolina-class battleship, commissioned in May 1941 and armed with nine 16-inch guns. Howard H. J. Benson was her first commanding officer. In 1942 she served for a time with the British Home Fleet in northern waters, then crossed to the Pacific as the fight for Guadalcanal neared its climax.
On the night of 14–15 November 1942 she fought off Savo Island in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Willis Augustus Lee directed the American battleship force with his flag in her, and Glenn Benson Davis, Sr. was the ship's commanding officer. Her 16-inch salvos left the Japanese battleship Kirishima fatally damaged, and Kirishima sank in the early hours of 15 November. Through the rest of the Pacific war USS Washington (BB-56) steamed with the fast carrier forces, screening the carriers and using her heavy guns against shore targets as the fleet advanced from the central Pacific toward Japan.
After the surrender she helped carry servicemen home across the Pacific. By the spring of 1947 she lay at the New York Naval Shipyard with a reduced crew, and the Navy was preparing her for a long period in reserve. Wright, a commander, had charge of that work: draining and preserving machinery, clearing stores, and leaving the hull and engineering plant in condition for a caretaker crew.
On 27 June 1947 he saw USS Washington (BB-56) decommissioned. She went into the reserve fleet and stayed there. The Navy struck her from the list in 1960 and sold her for scrap the next year. Wright's command lasted less than three months, and it closed the commissioned life of a battleship already remembered for the night action off Guadalcanal.