| Regimental number | 5197 |
| Place of birth | Bulumwaal, Victoria |
| School | Bulumwaal State School and Wonthaggi State School, Victoria |
| Religion | Methodist |
| Occupation | Labourer |
| Address | Hagelthorn Street, Wonthaggi, Victoria |
| Marital status | Single |
| Age at embarkation | 18 |
| Next of kin | Mother, Mrs M Sawyer, Hagelthorn Street, Wonthaggi, Victoria |
| Previous military service | Served in the Cadets and Citizen Military Forces. |
| Enlistment date | |
| Rank on enlistment | Private |
| Unit name | 7th Battalion, 16th Reinforcement |
| AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/24/4 |
| Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A23 Suffolk on |
| Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
| Unit from Nominal Roll | 59th Battalion |
| Fate | Killed in Action |
| Place of death or wounding | Polygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium |
| Age at death | 19.8 |
| Age at death from cemetery records | 19 |
| Place of burial | No known grave |
| Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), Belgium The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936. Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. |
| Panel number, Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial | 168 |
| Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Alfred and Martha SAWYER, 253 Point Nepean Road, Brighton, Victoria. Native of Bulumwaal, Victoria |
| Family/military connections | Brother: 2644 Pte Leslie John SAWYER, 3rd Pioneer Bn, returned to Australia, 12 June 1919. |
| Other details |
War service: Western Front Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Postal Address:
Po Box 7916
Canberra BC 2610, Australia
Street Address:
Northcott Drive,
Campbell, ACT 2600
