T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Russell Wright, a 97-year-old Navy veteran who served at the end of WWII and was at Tokyo Bay when Japan formally surrendered in 1945, has written a memoir about his life and experiences titled “I Am One of God’s Greatest Creations, So Are You.” Wright, a native of Spencer, resides at the Iowa Veterans Home.

Russell Wright has lived a long, interesting and fulfilling life, and even though it took him well over 90 years to do it, the Spencer native and current Iowa Veterans Home resident has decided to write it all down.

Wright, 97, has completed a short memoir titled “I Am One of God’s Greatest Creations, So Are You” with help from family members and staff at IVH, and he’s in the process of trying to market it for wider distribution while also sharing a copy with the Marshalltown Public Library.

At the age of 17 and fresh out of high school, Wright enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Aug. 7, 1944 and ended up seeing more of the world than he ever had before, traveling with a fleet of more than 100 ships to Japan to finish the war in 1945. He recalled spending 60 days straight on a boat without seeing land, and once they had crossed the Pacific Ocean, the ship he was on received a unique assignment.

“As this huge fleet neared Japan, our ship was ordered to break away from the fleet to go to a predetermined location near Japan. The rest of the fleet continued sailing toward Japan. Upon reaching our location, we were to send messages back and forth to other departments on our ship to create a flurry of communications, making the enemy think we were with the entire fleet,” he wrote. “The mission was to attract the enemy to this location with all their gunpowder. Our pretend suicide mission did not attract the enemy as they had already fallen for similar tactics twice before in recent efforts. Thus, we were ordered to rejoin the fleet, at which time we added to an ongoing gun bombardment of the Japanese mainland near Tokyo Bay. During this mission, we heard the news that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan and that they soon surrendered.”

During a recent interview with the T-R, Wright described the way he felt during the mission, which is still vivid in his mind some 79 years later.

“Everybody was pretty uncertain that they would ever see home again because we were sitting ducks for the enemy if they decided to take (our boat),” he said before being interrupted as a nurse walked into the room.

The young Wright, just 18 at the time, witnessed a pivotal moment in American history and had a chance to visit Tokyo afterward to celebrate. He also recalled a stop in the Philippines and some of his crew members swimming off the coast. Today, he is believed to be the last living crew member of the USS Tucson CL-98.

“I often wonder if today’s society understands the price we all paid for their current way of life. I do not recall America being divided as it seems to be today. My wish is that every citizen should spend a great deal of effort reflecting on the priceless gift of our country’s freedom,” he wrote.

After the military, Wright settled in Omaha with his wife, to whom he was married for 70 years before her passing at IVH, and they eventually moved back to his hometown of Spencer. He started out driving a milk truck and later owned a variety of businesses over the years, from a massage therapy outfit to a pizza parlor to a dance hall.

He’s been at IVH for almost five years now and will turn 98 in December. Over the past year or so, Wright decided it was time to write about his life experiences — good, bad and in between — and his journey toward becoming a stronger Christian in his 90s.

“The last few years, through the materials I’ve read, I became a believer in ‘Let go and let God,'” he said. “It’s got to where it worked out, where God does speak to me every now and then if I’m listening and gives me the information that I need. I had the information, but I didn’t have the courage to write it down. One day, I decided that I just may have a winner in this little book.”

Currently, Wright has advertisements for the book placed around the IVH campus (he has copies on hand), and he’s working on marketing it to a wider audience.

The message he hopes readers take away from it is simple: God is in them, whether they know it or not.