Ships
- USS Marshall (DD-676) Captain, 16 October 1943 – 14 March 1944
Sinclair Best Wright (born 29 October 1908) was a United States Navy officer from Portland, Oregon, a graduate of the Naval Academy in the class of 1931, who commissioned the Fletcher-class destroyer Marshall at Kearny, New Jersey, on 16 October 1943 and commanded her until 14 March 1944. In December 1943, during her shakedown, she met the battleship Iowa in the mid-Atlantic to escort President Roosevelt home from the Tehran conference. She sailed for the Pacific in January 1944, and he left her before she joined the fast carrier force.
He was born on 29 October 1908, according to a compilation of officers' records, which gives Wisconsin as the state; the 1931 Lucky Bag gives his home as Portland, Oregon. The sources examined here do not name his parents or describe his family.
He studied pre-medicine for two years at the University of Oregon before deciding on a naval career. The yearbook writers treated this as an event "of major importance," after which "the medical profession was the loser." He "decided to see the world, little realizing that it would be through a porthole." Once set on an idea, they said, "it is almost impossible to change his mind." They called him "Sinc." He was not a star man, "although he has made serious threats at times," and his ambitions "seemed to be for bigger and better things, especially that of the pedagogue": anyone "who happens to have 2.5 aspirations, with 2.4 abilities, will find him the greatest of help." He contended constantly for a place on the basketball team, but "each time his place seemed secure, his efforts were frustrated by injuries." As "an all-round athlete, he has a good record and has never graced the 'Radiator Club.'" The sketch closes: "His cheery disposition and endless wit make him the best of companions." The activities line lists the pep committee, class gym, the reception and stunt committees, and a petty officer's rank.
He graduated in June 1931, at twenty-two. A compilation of Register dates gives him the rank of lieutenant on 1 July 1939, temporary lieutenant commander on 15 June 1942, and temporary commander on 1 November 1942. The sources examined here do not name his ships or stations between 1931 and 1943.
The Marshall was laid down at Kearny on 29 April 1943, launched on 29 August 1943 and commissioned on 16 October 1943. Wright was thirty-four, and the ship's namesake was a lieutenant commander of the class of 1930 who had been lost in the destroyer Jacob Jones when a German submarine sank her off Cape May in February 1942.
Her first assignment came while she was still on shakedown off Bermuda. Speeding from there, she rendezvoused in mid-Atlantic with the Iowa on 13 December 1943 to escort President Franklin D. Roosevelt back from the conferences at Tehran. On 6 January 1944 she left New York for Pearl Harbor, arriving on the 28th, and remained there, training and escorting damaged ships returning for repair, until mid-March. Wright was relieved on 14 March 1944, at thirty-five. The ship reached Majuro on 20 March to join Task Group 58.2 under another captain.
The ship's later record belongs to her later captains. She sailed with the fast carriers through the Marianas and the Battle of the Philippine Sea, rescued 212 men from the burning carrier Franklin on 19 March 1945, and served as a radar picket during the Okinawa campaign. The sources examined here give no account of Wright's own part in the Roosevelt escort and no action report, letter or diary of his.
The sources examined here do not record his later service, his retirement, his rank on leaving the service, any marriage or children, or his death.
His surviving record is a yearbook sketch, a list of ranks, and five months in command of a new destroyer whose first notable duty was a rendezvous with the President's battleship.