CPL Atlas Elwood Wright was born 3 Jul 1919 in Gasburg, Virginia. He was the 3rd of the 4 children born to Leonard Hope and Winnie Ann (Whitby) Wright. His father farmed for others before buying his own farm in the Meherrin District in Brunswick County, Virginia. Atlas' younger brother, Aruby, died of scarlet fever at the age of 3 in 1931. Then his father began working in one of the cotton or textile mills in the area and both Atlas and his father were doing that work in 1940 with Atlas working for the Rosemary Manufacturing Company in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina about 15 miles away while his father worked for the Roanoke Mill Company in the same town. Atlas had only a grammar school education.
Atlas was drafted in May 1941. He initially went to Fort George Meade, Maryland and it was while there that he was probably assigned to A Company 116th Infantry. He then trained with the unit at Fort Meade, in the Carolina Maneuvers near Fort Bragg and at Camp Blanding, Florida before being sent to England in September 1942. Once there he trained with the unit in preparation for the amphibious assault that was planned as a part of the effort to liberate Nazi occupied France. A Company was the lead element in that assault and landed exactly where they were supposed to on the beach which was heavily defended and suffered numerous casualties. CPL Wright was killed in action on that day, 6 Jun 1944.
CPL Wright was repatriated and re-interred in Wright's at Woodview Cemetery in Brunswick County, Virginia.
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