With thanks to AC Benus who found me the WW1 poems of Carnegie Tech that led to the discovery of this poet
On The Andover College Memorial website, we learn that:
“Jack Morris Wright, Class of 1917, left school before graduation to sail for France with the Andover Ambulance Unit. After arriving, members of the unit were told there was little need for additional ambulance drivers but a great need for men to drive ammunition trucks for the French Army — the Camion Corps. Like most members of the unit, Wright volunteered. It was necessary but dull work, and (again, like many others) Wright soon wangled his way into aviation, first in the French Army, then with the U.S. Army Air Servie of the American Expeditionary Force.”
Jack was killed flying on the Western Front on 24th January 1918. After the War, his mother had his letters published Jack’s letters with the title “A Poet Of The Air; Letters Of Jack Morris Wright: First Lieutenant Of The American Aviation In France, April, 1917-January, 1918”
When she wrote to Jack telling him of her intention, he agreed to her suggestion and penned a bellicose foreword for the book in December 1917. It began:
“These letters are taken directly out of the hurried office of Mars;
they are notes on the exact shell-holes your man will crouch in,
on the precious stars and mighty heavens he will look up to;
on War’s fight, toil, and divinity;
on War’s romance and War’s exile;
on War’s New World and the new life it spreads each passing day,
to every human proud to have a soul across the Atlantic firmament
in the first grasping streaks of dawn.”
In a letter to his Grandmother, dated 19th May 1917, Jack said:
"After a week in Paris where I awaited my ambulance, I was suddenly sent with a transport section that carries munitions up to the line, so that I should make sketches to be sent to America.
Within three months, though, I will be back to a Ford ambulance unless something else turns up or unless I prefer to remain here.
Twenty boys and two Profs of my school have come with me, so I feel quite at home. But of course I am at home anyway since France means so very much to me. I have always been in Paradise here. I have often been in Hell in America. Then the war is a sight that only a fool or a prisoner would miss."
On 5th September 1917, Jack wrote to his mother:
"You want to know something of my aviation program? I have told you much already. I can't tell you very much more on account of the censor, but here is a general idea of it which is public and permissible to tell: --
I go to training camp in the most beautiful country of France, this autumn. After three months' training --- proportional to weather conditions, I will know all about aeroplanes, motors and tactics and fighting. I will have passed semi-final and final exams and will be a full-fledged aviator pilot. with the grade of a First Lieutenant of the U.S. Army in whose service I will be.
I am enlisted now as a private for the duration of the war and will not get my stripes for some three months, when I am sent to the front to fly.
“A Poet Of The Air; Letters Of Jack Morris Wright: First Lieutenant Of The American Aviation In France, April, 1917-January, 1918” is available to read on the Internet http://www.gwpda.org/memoir/Wright/Jack3.htm
Here is a poem written by one of Jack's friends - Richard Gibbs Mansfield II - dedicated to Jack:
“Memories”
Written upon hearing of the death of his friend, who had served as an ambulance driver in France with Richard before joining the American Air Service - Lieutenant Jack Wright Although only 18 years old, Jack Morris Wright who was also a poet, was commissioned as a First Lieutenant Pilot-Aviator of the American Aviation and was killed in France on 24th January 1918.
It's a face in a crowd as you're passing by;
It's the turn of a head that will catch your eye;
It's a gay refrain that will make you sigh.
Memories — memories — we all must die.
The hotel lobby is gold and red.
And you catch yourself thinking of things he said.
And a girl comes near, with a turn of her head; —
He'd have liked her, too, — but he's dead.
So the flowers will grow by his grave some day.
And the world goes on with its work and play;
But I catch myself humming a song that's gay.
It's how he would like to have died — that way!
By Richard Mansfield II
From “Carnegie Tech War Verse” (Carnegie Institute of Technology, Carnegie, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 1918), p. 13
AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations. ISBN: 978-1657220584
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583
