On this day in 1940, Bro Leslie Wright of Lodge Tawhiri No. 166 was killed while training as a pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
He was 22 years old.
Leslie Wright was born on 29 March 1918 and grew up in the Hamilton area. He attended Hamilton Technical High School, where he played rugby, and was also a member of the Hamilton Rowing Club. After leaving school he worked for Hallenstein Bros. in Hamilton.
With the Second World War under way, Wright enlisted in the RNZAF at Levin on 2 July 1940. He undertook elementary flying training at New Plymouth before proceeding to No. 1 Service Flying Training School at Wigram.
On the morning of 11 December 1940, Wright was flying aboard Fairey Gordon NZ632 with fellow trainee pilot LAC Basil Rawdon Hastings Sharp. The two men were undertaking a cross-country instrument-training exercise when the aircraft crashed near Leithfield in Canterbury. Both were killed.
Wright was returned to Hamilton and buried at Hamilton East Public Cemetery. His grave is in Public Area B6, Row K, Grave 11. His service number was 401799.
For Tawhiri, his loss became closely connected with that of another young member, Bro Alexander George Herbert. The two men had been close friends and both served in the Air Force during the war.
When Tawhiri's Kent Street lodge rooms were rebuilt after the 1948 Hamilton tornado, that friendship was remembered in the furniture of the new lodge room. The Lodge's records identify a Director of Ceremonies' chair in memory of Bro L Wright and a Chaplain's chair in memory of Bro A Herbert. Their position together was intended to reflect the closeness of their friendship before the war.
More than eighty years later, Leslie Wright remains one of two Tawhiri brethren known to have lost their lives while serving with the RNZAF during the Second World War.
On 11 December, we remember our Brother.
Bro Leslie Wright
RNZAF 401799
Died 11 December 1940, aged 22
Lest we forget. >