Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1945 Lucky Bag:

Alfred Augustus Sawyer

Swimming 4, s45t; Battalion Football 4, 1; Battalion Crew 3; Boat Club 4, 3; Radio Club 3, 1; Reception Committee 4

Born in Venezuela, little Gus was taken at an early age to the Lone Star State where he proceeded to attain the traditional height of six feet one. Port Arthur, though reputed to be mostly under water, at least afforded Gus an ever present view of the sea, with the result that he finally joined the crew on the Severn. Gus had a hand in several sports including football and crew, but his favorite was swimming, at which he was no amateur. On the other hand, his natural Texan laziness him an expert at horizontal engineering. Gus hopes to enter the submarine branch of our Navy. Best of luck, and may you surface to a long and prosperous career.

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The s45t is not a transcription error; unclear what it indicates. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion staff (1st set). The Class of 1945 was graduated in June 1944 due to World War II. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.

Loss

Alfred was lost on June 23, 1948 when the aircraft he was piloting crashed near El Centro, California on a practice mission.

Other Information

From an email on January 19, 2019 from Alfred’s son, also named Alfred:

He was killed in a plane crash on June 23, 1948. I was born August 11 of that same year, so I never knew him.

The class of 1945, as you know, graduated in 1944 because of the War. My father was a gunnery officer on the heavy cruiser Portland in the South Pacific and went to flight training in Pensacola in 1946.

About 10 years ago I finally got the accident report from the Navy. He was flying the SB2C Helldiver near El Centro, California on the morning of the crash. His squadron was firing Tiny Tim rockets at ground targets. This required diving from about 8,000 ft AGL, pulling out at around 1,000 ft AGL and firing the rockets. On his last run of the day he pulled out of the dive and a portion of the right horizontal stabilizer broke off, causing the airplane to enter an uncontrollable roll to the right at an altitude too low to bail out.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Alfred attended Lamar College, Beaumont, Texas, in 1941. He was also a member of the Kollege Klub and the golf team.

In 1930, his father Alfred was an oil refinery mechanical engineer, mother Carmen, sisters Carmen and Dorothy.

He was married in February 1947; his wife was eight months pregnant at the time of his loss.

Alfred is buried in California.

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Conrad Grove, Jr. ‘45, Lloyd Wyatt, Jr. ‘45, Arthur Day ‘45, Robert Billings ‘45, James Dawley, Jr. ‘45, Jack Flanagan ‘45, Richard Hodsdon ‘45, and John Horn ‘45 were also in 8th Company.