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.