flag and training with other destroyers in the fleet. In July 1926, Lt. Wright joined the , a , as the principal assistant of the ship's Gunnery Division. In November 1928, the Maryland took President-elect Herbert Hoover on the outbound leg of his goodwill tour of Latin America. Wright also furthered his hands-on education of gunnery and ordnance while serving as an instructor at the Gunnery School on the battleship . Commander Wright joined , a attached to the Scouting Force, as its first lieutenant in August 1931 and later became the ship's gunnery officer from June 1932 to June 1934. The Salt Lake City participated in naval exercises in the Atlantic and Pacific, underwent a major overhaul and participated in the 1934 Naval Review. Wright's first sea command was , a , with Wright serving as its first commanding officer from July 1937 to May 1939. The Blue completed its shakedown cruise, transitted the Panama Canal, and joined the Destroyer Division 7 (DesRon 7) as its flagship, becoming a unit of the Battle Force based at the San Diego Naval Base, California. The Blue participated in Fleet Problem XX exercises staged in the Caribbean Sea. Wright's final pre-war sea assignment was as the executive officer of , a based at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in the Territory of Hawaii, from March 1941 to May 1942. The Mississippi became a unit of Battleship Division 3 (BatDiv 3) with sister ships and . Following the Bismarck incident and the growing U-boat threat, Battleship Division 3 was secretly shifted to the newly reconstituted U.S. Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Admiral Ernest J. King, entering the Norfolk Naval Base in June 1941. Mississippi was present at the Atlantic Conference at Argentia, participated in the Neutrality Patrol, and joined the Idaho and the British battleship to form an Iceland-based fleet in being to deter the German battleship from deploying into the north Atlantic to threaten Allied convoys. After months of operations in the North Atlantic, Mississippi was en route to Norfolk for long overdue repairs two days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Shore duty Wright served as a naval aide for two Presidents of the United States, including Calvin Coolidge from September 1924 to June 1926, with additional duties as a watch and division officer on board the presidential yacht , and Herbert Hoover during his pre-inaugural