James Wright was a Pilot Officer serving with 489 Squadron, RNZAF, having joined after training in Canada. He was piloting a Bristol Beaufighter two-seat torpedo bomber out of RAF Langham, near Norfolk when he took off on an anti-shipping patrol off Den Helder, the northern-most point of the North Holland Peninsula.
Wright's plane was hit by gunfire from a German "flak ship" and crashed into the North Sea eight kilometres from the Dutch island of Texel. He and his Observer Robert MacQuaker were killed instantly and their remains never found.
He was posted "missing" in June of 1944, "presumed dead" in April, 1945 and his will proven in court in June, 1946.
Northern Cemetery, Dunedin.
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