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<p>Major <em>Lee Otis Wright</em>, Ordnance Department, was killed in an airplane accident February 10, 1925, at Brooks Field, Texas, where he was enrolled as a student officer in the Air Service Flying School.</p>
<p>Major Wright was born in Koleen, Indiana, August 6, 1888. He entered the United States Military Academy March 2, 1908, and was graduated June 12, 1912, standing number 7 in a class of 96. After serving three years in the Coast Artillery Corps, he was detailed to the Ordnance Department July 14, 1915, where he served continuously until September, 1924, when he was detailed to the Air Service for one year. Major Wright was on duty at Rock Island Arsenal from July, 1915, to June, 1916; at Watertown Arsenal from June, 1916, until May, 1917; and thereafter served in the office of the Chief of Ordnance, Washington, D. C., until June, 1921.</p>
<p>During the War his entire service was as an Ordnance Officer on design and manufacture of small arms and small arms ammunition.</p>
<p>He was sent abroad in 1918 with four civilian experts in small arms ammunition manufacture to obtain data on processes of manufacture in use by the Allied Governments in order to assist American manufacturers in meeting the increased demands made upon them.</p>
<p>Major Wright brought back a wealth of data on incendiary, explosive, and armor-piercing ammunition, and most valuable information which was of the greatest aid in speeding up production in this country. Early in 1919 he made a second trip abroad.</p>
<p>After the War Major Wright served as Chief of the Aircraft Armament and Small Arms Division of the Technical Staff, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, until June, 1921, when he was detailed to take the course of the Ordnance School conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</p>
<p>Upon graduation in June, 1922, he was assigned to duty as Chief of the Infantry and Aircraft Armament Division, Manufacturing Service, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, which position he held until July, 1924.</p>
<p>In September of 1924 he entered on his duties as a student officer at Brooks Field, Texas.</p>
<p>Major Wright was one of the ablest officers of the Department. No officer had a more profound knowledge of his specialty than he. He was an officer of superior intelligence, mentally able to cope with the most abstruse problems of his work, accurate in his conclusions, and forceful and energetic in their application. He never shirked a responsibility, never dodged a decision.</p>
<p>He labored unceasingly to establish a more perfect harmony between the Ordnance Department and the using services of the Line, and to that end collaborated with the Infantry in many of their problems, gaining their confidence and winning their admiration. He urged a more active investigation into the possibilities of semi-automatic shoulder weapons, and he was largely responsible for the fact that several promising types are now under way.</p>
<p>Probably no other single individual is more to be accredited than Major Wright for the rapid progress made in improving small arms and small arms ammunition since the War. Information secured by him abroad has been invaluable, but this, without his vigorous defense of experimental work and his aid in securing appropriations to carry on the work, could not have accomplished what has been done.</p>
<p>He believed that an Ordnance Officer could be a better designer, a better manufacturer, more of an expert, if he knew first hand the problems of the using services. He was agreed that an Ordnance Officer could better serve the Air Service if he could regard problems in the light in which Air Service officers saw them.</p>
<p>He had accomplished much in the solution of Infantry small arms problems and with a creditable and unselfish ambition turned to questions confronting the Air Service. Voluntarily he entered a class of student flyers, and, without regard to personal safety, he strove to accomplish what age and physical failings rendered most difficult.</p>
<p>The Ordnance Department has lost one of its most valuable officers, the Line has lost a faithful friend. The Army is deprived of an officer of the highest type in whom was exemplified to a high degree the motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.” A host of friends has lost a comrade, a true, loyal friend, in whom a trust was never misplaced, by whom a confidence was never violated, and from whom a sympathetic support was never lacking.</p>
<p><em>Memorial article found at 1929 AR 1929</em></p>
<p><a href="https://usmalibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/aogreunion/id/18924/rec/1">https://usmalibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/aogreunion/id/18924/rec/1</a></p>
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