A Final Farewell

Rain-soaked in the stern of the boat, Thief of Time, Ron Wright grasped a floral wreath close to his heart.
As the sky darkened and four-foot waves buffeted the vessel, Ron, 74, had little time for silent meditation.
He steadied himself against the boat and bowed his head to pray.
With his brothers, Tony, 71, and Brian, 69, Ron had journeyed far from his English homeland to pay homage to a man he scarcely knew, whose body rested 110 feet below on the Gulf of Mexico's floor.
On the 66th anniversary of the day the British tanker, S.S. Empire Mica, was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Cape San Blas, Ron came in search of his father's spirit.
Through the wind and the rain, Ron whispered prayers over one wreath, then another, before casting them starboard into the raging Gulf.
A prayer for Thomas Wright and his 32 fallen shipmates; another for all fishermen who brave the stormy seas.
As Tony battled seasickness in the cabin and Brian sat alone in the Port Inn, Ron did what none had been able to do for 66 long years.
He bid his father goodbye.
Journey of Discovery
The Wright brothers flew from Manchester, England to Panama City on June 24 and got their first feel of the balmy Florida sun.
Eschewing the long trousers and sweaters they'd worn at home for baseball caps and shorts, the brothers, cameras in hand, were indistinguishable from ordinary summer tourists.
But unlike the similarly styled snowbirds, the brothers came not to lose themselves in the Florida sunshine, but to discover that which had been missing from their lives for over six decades.
Though the events of June 29, 1942 have long been the stuff of local lore, Ron, Brian and Tony spent most of their lives knowing almost nothing about the circumstances surrounding the Empire Mica's sinking.
At the time of the sinking, the Wright family received a telegram containing two kernels of information: the Empire Mica had been torpedoed and Thomas Wright was presumed drowned.
The ship's official records remained sealed in the British Archives for decades.
New details emerged in 2004, and by 2006, the brothers began making plans to fly to the area.
Landing in Panama City, they traveled to Port St. Joe, Cape San Blas, Indian Pass and Apalachicola.
They stayed a week, touring the places they'd encountered in their research, and speaking to those who remembered what they had only recently come to know.
Theirs was a journey of discovery 66 years in the making, which began with the blast of two torpedoes on a brilliant moonlit night.
The Captain's Gamble
Loaded with 11,000 tons of petroleum destined for allied tanks in North Africa, the Empire Mica sailed from Pensacola to St. Andrew's Bay.
With a 47-member crew onboard, the ship had departed from the docks of Bristol, England and traveled amid a protective convoy down the eastern coast of the U.S.
Having retrieved its cargo in Baytown, Tex., the ship resumed its journey back to Key West to rejoin the convoy.
As it traveled, the Empire Mica followed the 10-fathom curve, staying in 60-foot depths where German U-boats could not journey.
Hugh Bradford Bentley, the ship's captain, had intended to seek safe harbor in St. Andrew's Bay on the night of June 28, 1942, when he received a message from the local harbor pilot, Capt. Melvin Beck.
Heavily loaded as it was, the Empire Mica was taking on too much water to enter the harbor.
Beck advised Bentley to anchor near the shore and shut down the ship's machinery to escape detection by the German submarines.
Ignoring Beck's advice, Bentley made a fateful gamble and struck out again.
Venturing far wide of the 10-fathom curve, the Empire Mica passed St. Joseph Bay and rounded Cape San Blas at a speed of 13 knots.
Thomas Wright
Able Seaman Thomas "Tommy" Edward Wright had spent much time away from his South Wigston home since joining the Royal Navy in 1940.
Unlike his compatriots of a similar age, Wright had not been conscripted for service during World War II. His trade as a plasterer had been declared a reserved occupation.
Though spared from military service, Wright felt a natural kinship with sailors, having been raised in the coastal town of Northumberland.
At the outbreak of war, he attempted to enlist in the Royal Navy, but was declined in his hometown.
Exploiting a bureaucratic loophole, Wright traveled 26 miles to the city of Nottingham, where he was not asked to produce a work card.
Wright served on five Royal Navy ships from 1940-1942.
When the S.S. Empire Mica, a merchant ship commissioned by the British government and leased to the Anglo American Oil Company, sought qualified men to safeguard its cargo, Wright was among four Naval gunners who answered the call.
Home on his last leave in 1942, Wright gathered his small collection of family photographs, affixing each one to his suitcase's inner lid.
Before departing, he spent all his money on gifts - a new coat for wife, Doris, toys for young sons Ron and Tony and a new football for baby Brian.
As Wright reported to the Bristol docks, three-year-old Brian cried inconsolably in South Wigston Park.
His brand new football had burst.
"A Technicolor scene"
Under clear skies, as a slight wind stirred in the Gulf, the Empire Mica continued its journey east.
On the bridge, 21-year-old Ron Mowatt, on his maiden voyage, had noticed no suspicious activity since coming on watch at midnight.
Bentley's bold gamble appeared to be paying off, when at approximately 12:45 on the morning of June 29, 1942, Mowatt spotted a submarine from his lookout post.
Before he could sound the alarm, the U-67, helmed by Kapitanleutnant Gunther Muller-Stockheim, launched two torpedoes.
The first struck the ship portside, about midship; the other set fire to the stern.
The cabins, where many of the crew lay sleeping, erupted into flames, communication was lost and the ship's papers were reduced to ash.
"Everything became red, yellow and orange - a Technicolor scene," Mowatt would report after his rescue.
As the flames rose higher, those aboard desperately sought escape.
The crewmates attempted to launch the ship's three lifeboats. Only one succeeded in getting clear, thanks to 3rd Engineer Joseph Steele's heroic action in stopping the Empire Mica's engines.
Of the 14 who escaped to safety, some squeezed through the ship's portholes, and one jumped off the starboard quarter over the flames, miraculously escaping injury.
Bentley broke his nose and was rendered temporarily unconscious, but lived to see another day.
Thomas Wright, 32, received no mention in Bentley's official report of the sinking.
Of the 47 crewmembers, wrote Bentley, "The only survivors appeared to be those actually on watch or at hand amidships."
"I thought he would come back"
Tony, then five, was still very much a child when he received the news of his father's death.
For years, he nurtured the hope that his father would return home.
"When you're a young boy, you go to the pictures and see some of these American stories of the young man goes out to sea and is lost. They think he's drowned and at the end of the show, he comes walking in, big as life," said Tony.
"I thought dad would do that; I thought he would come back. I was very much convinced he would. I hoped he would be there when I got married, subconsciously, but he never turned up."
Like Tony, Ron, then eight, prayed every night for months that his father would return.
Months passed with no word, and then, in early 1943, Doris Wright received a letter from Capt. Bentley.
Though he had not seen Thomas Wright in the sinking's aftermath, Bentley confirmed that his location on the ship's stern was in the direct line of the torpedo.
Wright, Bentley could say with near certainty, had perished in the blaze.
Because Ron was the eldest child, and more mature than his brothers, Doris Wright shared the letter with him alone.
He kept the secrets contained within the captain's letters for years, never sharing the news with his brothers.
After the tragedy, the family remained in South Wigston.
The wartime population swelled to 12,000 as evacuees from London moved into the area's vacant homes, which had been built years earlier in anticipation of a boom that never quite materialized.
The squalid quality of many of the lodgings gave rise to the city's nickname "Rat Alley."
Thomas Wright's family remained in close contact with Doris Wright and her sons.